As part of TUM Mentoring, Alumni accompany students and doctoral candidates for one year and support them in their personal development. TUM Alumna Prof. Dr. Marion A. Weissenberger-Eibl was also an important advisor to her mentee Daniel Schellenberger. (Image: Madgalena Jooß/TUM).
During this time, she became increasingly aware of the importance of innovation and the decisive role it plays in economic issues. This prompted her to study Business Administration at Ludwig-Maximilian-University in Munich. But that was not all. “I always wanted to go into things in much more depth in order to find out when and why innovations come about and what framework conditions have to be in place,” Marion A. Weissenberger-Eibl recalls. The next step was to do her doctorate.
Marion A. Weissenberger-Eibl turned down a number of attractive offers from universities, wanting to complete her PhD at TUM. “To my mind, TUM has always been a pioneer among Germany’s technical universities,” she says, explaining this decision. “Research excellence and the university management’s entrepreneurial attitude are outstanding pillars of TUM that I find really exciting.” In 2000, Marion A. Weissenberger-Eibl completed her doctorate – followed three years later by her post-doctoral qualification.
Highest degree of networking
Since then, Marion A. Weissenberger-Eibl has been involved in influencing innovation processes in Germany on all fronts, whether in science, business or politics. Her work and research focus on the management of innovations and technologies, strategic foresight and planning, corporate networks and knowledge management. She sees a very high degree of interdisciplinary networking as the fundamental driving force and motor for innovation, and this is something which she herself is the best example of.
From 2004 to 2012, she headed the Chair of Innovation and Technology Management at the University of Kassel, and since 2013 has been in charge of the Chair of Innovation and Technology Management iTM at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology. She provides Germany’s Federal Government and Länder with strategies for the future as well as sustainability strategies, and advises the Federal Government in matters relating to the development of research and universities as a member of the Science Council.
It is my wish that we develop a vision as part of a joint process that motivates all of us to work on the future together.
A companion for the future
In addition to the good scientific education she gained at TUM, Marion A. Weissenberger-Eibl also received the key qualifications that help her to cope with the many tasks she faces. “Curiosity, courage, efficient organization and freedom in my own thinking and work are things that I learned from TUM”, she says. The strategies and techniques over and above the knowledge imparted during her studies, which she learned from her two mentors, her doctoral supervisor Professor Horst Wildemann and her co-adviser for her post-doctoral qualification Professor Ann-Kristin Achleitner, continue to help her to this day.
At TUM Mentoring, alumni accompany students and doctoral candidates for a year and support them in their personal development. TUM Alumna Prof. Dr. Marion A. Weissenberger-Eibl was an important advisor to her mentee Daniel Schellenberger (Image: Madgalena Jooß/TUM).
Prof. Dr. Marion A. Weissenberger-Eibl (Picture: Franz Wamhof)
Doctorate Economic Sciences 2000
Following her apprenticeship as a tailor (1985-1987), Marion A. Weissenberger-Eibl studied Clothing Technology at the University of Applied Sciences for Technology from 1987 to 1991 and Business Administration at Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich from 1993 to 1997. She completed her doctorate at TUM in 2000, followed by her post-doctoral qualification at the Chair of Business Administration in 2003.
Since 2007, she has headed the Fraunhofer Institute for Systems and Innovation Research ISI in Karlsruhe. Since 2013, she has also held the Chair for Innovation and Technology Management iTM at the Institute for Entrepreneurship, Technology Management and Innovation (ENTECHNON) at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT).
She is passionate about innovation, the future and strategic foresight. She advises businesses, scientists and politicians, in this way making a decisive contribution to the process of innovation in Germany. Marion A.
Weissenberger-Eibl spends her free time with her husband, her family, friends and sometimes alone, hiking, exploring unknown regions as a pillion passenger on a motorcycle, or strolling through art galleries.
