Professor Thomas Schlegel heads the Institute for Intelligent Interactive Ubiquitous Systems (IIIUS) at Furtwangen University. Image: Furtwangen University
The right to award doctorates, specialist laboratories and a flair for unusual topics – Professor Thomas Schlegel heads the IIIUS Institute at Furtwangen University
If he were not a computer scientist, he would probably have excellent chances as a gardener − wherever Professor Thomas Schlegel gets involved, things grow: institutes; specialist areas; teams and countless research projects. At Furtwangen University (HFU), Schlegel heads the Institute for Intelligent Interactive Ubiquitous Systems (IIIUS) and works in a specialist field in which there are few recognised experts − the interaction between IT, systems and people. “I apparently have a talent for building structures,” he says with a smile. The fact that he always considers the users’ perspective runs like a common thread through his career.
This path began by studying software engineering at the University of Stuttgart, which he completed with a degree in computer science (Diplom-Informatiker). He then moved into applied research at a Fraunhofer Institute – and in parallel pursued the doctorate he was determined to do. “Looking back, I have to say, it becomes challenging when you start an academic career at Fraunhofer. That leaves evenings and weekends for the doctorate,” he recalls. In terms of content, he worked on runtime modelling in distributed systems − on corporate structures and supply chains in which actors collaborate with different levels of information. He investigated how processes can be split up and carried out in a decentralised way, what infrastructure is needed for this and how manufacturing processes can be reconfigured during ongoing operations without interrupting workflows. Schlegel also founded a start-up that, as he puts it, helped companies “shoot up” − from paper forms to fully digital workflows, from routing slips to tablets and smartwatches. “I learned a lot about how digitalisation works in real organisations – and sometimes how it doesn’t,” he says.
After completing his doctorate with distinction, Thomas Schlegel returned to the university sector, joining Germany’s largest visualisation institute, which was looking for a team leader for interactive systems – precisely at the intersection between computer science and people that still shapes his work today. There he set up numerous projects, worked as a postdoc and team leader, and then moved to a junior professorship at TU Dresden. He thought carefully about the move to Saxony, “it was not exactly just around the corner”, but his wife later followed him there; their two children were also born in Dresden. Academically, he was able to establish the specialisation in software engineering for ubiquitous systems within the media informatics degree programme, which grew rapidly. “At the time, I took staff from Baden-Württemberg with me because the collaboration worked so well,” he recalls. After around three years, he was already leading a team of about 20 staff members and just as many student assistants. After four years, he had achieved an equivalent to habilitation – making him one of the few people who can teach both at a university and at a University of Applied Sciences. Doctoral studies remain particularly important to him − he is the spokesperson in a doctoral programme and emphasises that, in his view, research operations can only really function if you can also guide people through to a doctorate.
For personal reasons, the family then returned to Baden-Württemberg. At a major public transport trade fair in Karlsruhe, Schlegel made contact with Karlsruhe University of Applied Sciences – they were looking for someone who could bridge the gap between IT and public transport. Thomas Schlegel took up a professorship with a focus on public transport, founded the Institute for Ubiquitous Mobility Systems and developed an informatics curriculum for transport systems managers. He taught software engineering with a clear specialisation in public transport – once again in an environment where he could help shape structures, teams and degree programmes from the ground up.
The next major move finally brought him to the Black Forest. “We are actually climate refugees,” Schlegel says with a laugh – referring to the hot Upper Rhine Plain, which the family longed to leave for higher, cooler ground. They were drawn to the mountains and the Black Forest, and today the family lives in Sankt Georgen. Schlegel already knew the Computer Science in Media degree programme in Furtwangen and was also attracted by the HFU research profile. In his free time, as a holder of three black belts, he both trains and teaches karate.
Thomas Schlegel particularly appreciates the support he received in setting up his working environment in Furtwangen. The university management ensured that he was able to bring large parts of his Karlsruhe laboratory with him. Today he has two spacious floors in the R Building, where he has set up a laboratory that is hard to find anywhere else − half a tram carriage from Karlsruhe’s public transport company, a compartment segment from Deutsche Bahn, an ExploraVision table and a semi-circular, room-sized curved wall of screens allow human-machine interaction to be studied in particularly realistic conditions. “At other institutions, space was often an issue,” he says. “Now I finally have room to do research.” A team of around 15 people now works with him in Furtwangen, and he also supervises three doctoral candidates on site and two further doctoral students in Dresden. He describes the right to award doctorates, which comes with his Dresden university professorship, as a “niche case”.
As a “niche cultivator”, Thomas Schlegel makes projects possible that are often spectacular and at the same time very close to real-world practice. For example, a virtual Ice Age portal on a real nature trail, where you can take a selfie with a woolly rhinoceros. A mobile app that offers age-appropriate environmental education for young people. In his current home town of Sankt Georgen, he is working with a group of students to implement a digital tourism trail with QR codes and to design an ExploraVision table where digital maps can be accessed and transformed live into different scenarios using real objects. Another project makes the principles of the power grid tangible in a playful way. He is currently testing in the laboratory how parcel robots can use public transport. Together with a research colleague, he is also planning to have a post-delivery robot driving around Furtwangen Campus in the near future. “It is important to me that experimental platforms do not get stuck in the lab,” he says. “We always try to translate them into practical benefits – in local authorities, in companies or directly on campus.”
In a current project, Thomas Schlegel is focusing on control centres − how buses and trains are orchestrated, and what an adaptive control centre of the future might look like that works with voice systems, artificial intelligence and event-driven systems. This involves, for example, how systems can automatically recognise what type of incident has occurred and how information flows can be managed so that the right team receives the right information at the right time. He sees potential not only in public transport, but also in other areas such as European aerospace or production control centres. Wherever highly complex, intelligent systems are monitored and controlled in control rooms, his approaches could make a difference. For all the technology, people remain at the centre of his work – as passengers, as dispatchers in the control centre, as students or as doctoral candidates. And as with his “niche cases” in research and teaching, one thing seems to apply here too − when he takes on a topic, it rarely results in just a single project, but almost always in an entire ecosystem.
The IIIUS Institute and its fascinating laboratory can be experienced at HFU on 9 July. In cooperation with the Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Professor Schlegel is inviting companies to come and experience the possibilities of the laboratory. Further information and registration: https://iiius.de/lab2026/
Spotlight on profs:
In this series, we introduce the distinguished academics who teach and carry out research at Furtwangen University. HFU is a University of Applied Sciences, which is why our professors have many years of practical experience. Their fascinating personal and professional stories are presented here in no particular order.