Digital transformation at the University of Hohenheim

CHE Consult has supported the University of Hohenheim in launching a comprehensive change process for digital transformation and helped shape a trend-setting strategy paper.

The University of Hohenheim wants to shape research, studies and teaching, but also the university administration, more innovative, more efficient and more future-proof. A strategy for digital transformation, coordinated with the university’s structural and development plan 2023 to 2027, is intended to contribute to this. In order to achieve university-wide acceptance for the complex project, the digital transformation will be actively developed and implemented as a participatory and future-oriented change process. The basis for this process and decisions to be made in the course of the process is a strategy paper that has already been developed with the participation of university members. It has an initial term of five years and will be continuously updated.

In order to create content for the strategy paper, thematic online workshops, discussions and meetings took place. Most of the ideas and text modules were developed in a “think tank” composed of people from different faculties and status groups, which met regularly over a period of ten months and contributed a wide range of perspectives to the process. Project Manager Julia Klingemann, Principal Consultant at CHE Consult, moderated, analysed and comprehensively documented these meetings and prepared them for the strategy paper. This was discussed and adopted by the Rectorate of the University of Hohenheim, the University Senate and the University Council, three faculty councils and other important committees.

Prof. Dr. Caroline Ruiner, Vice-Rector for Digital Transformation at the University of Hohenheim, is very content:

“I would like to express my sincere thanks to Ms Klingemann from CHE Consult for the professional, customised and trusting support at the beginning of this important change process. Thanks to the participatory approach, we were able to very quickly adopt the strategy paper with the most important plans and a governance structure for the digital transformation, which is supported by all stakeholders. Thus, we now have an excellent basis for the implementation.”