Board Three New Members of the University Council
20 November 2023
Dr Tilman Krauch, Dr Uwe Schroeder-Wildberg and Peter Abelmann have joined the body
The University Council of Ruperto Carola has two new external members, Dr Tilman Krauch und Dr Uwe Schroeder-Wildberg, and a new student member, Peter Abelmann. After the Senate of Heidelberg University endorsed the election, the Baden-Württemberg Ministry of Science announced their appointment as of 1 October 2023. Prof. Dr Hanno Kube joined the University Council as a new internal member back in May. The now twelve-person body has five internal and seven external members. Their term of office is three years.
Besides the Rectorate and the Senate, the University Council is one of the three central governing bodies of Heidelberg University. In accordance with the State Higher Education Act, it bears responsibility for the university’s development, and proposes action to raise its profile and enhance its performance and competitiveness. Its most important tasks include electing the Rector and the Kanzler, deciding on structural and development plans, and adopting the annual accounts of the university and the two medical faculties.
Tilman Krauch – one of the new external members of the University Council – is a member of the Board of Management of the Freudenberg Group and, as Chief Technology Officer (CTO), responsible for the technological development and research of Freudenberg SE. He studied chemistry at the University of Freiburg and at ETH Zurich (Switzerland), also taking his doctorate there. After postdoctoral research in Russia and Japan he began his professional career in the Research and Development division of BASF. After holding various positions at BASF in Germany, Hong Kong and the United States, Dr Krauch transferred to Freudenberg in 2014 to join its Board of Management. Since 2020 Tilman Krauch has been a member of the Academic Advisory Council of Heidelberg University. In 2022 he was appointed an honorary senator of Ruperto Carola. Dr Krauch chairs the board of the association Zukunft Metropolregion Rhein-Neckar.
Uwe Schroeder-Wildberg has likewise joined the University Council as an external member. The Chair of the Executive Board of the MLP Group first completed vocational training in a bank and then graduated in Business Studies at the University of Mannheim. This was followed by an academic position attached to the professorial chair for banking and the stock market. In 1992, along with his doctoral supervisor, he moved to the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, where he obtained his doctorate in 1997. Dr Schroeder-Wildberg subsequently worked for various companies, most recently as an executive board member of the Cortalconsors Group in Paris (France), from where he transferred to MLP in 2003 and became Chairman of its Executive Board in the following year.
Peter Abelmann is the new student member of the University Council. He is taking a degree at Heidelberg University in philosophy, European art history and sociology. In the last three years he was Chairman of the Constituted Student Body, and prior to that its Deputy Chairman and the Student Council’s programme officer for teaching. He was elected as a student member of the Senate and also belonged to the Senate Commission for Teaching, the Rectorate Commission for Fair Conduct and the university’s Constitution Commission. Peter Abelmann is involved in various areas of voluntary work.
Legal scholar Hanno Kube directs the Institute for Public Finance and Tax Law at Heidelberg University. He studied law at Ruperto Carola and the University of Geneva (Switzerland), graduated as Master of Law from Cornell University in New York (USA) and, in 1998, earned his doctorate at Heidelberg University, after passing his first and second state examination in law. Research positions led him to the University of California in Berkeley (USA) and the European University Institute in Florence (Italy). His habilitation in Heidelberg followed in 2003. The researcher held professorships at the Catholic University of Eichstätt-Ingolstadt and the University of Mainz before he returned to Ruperto Carola in 2014 as Professor of Public Law with particular regard to Public Finance and Tax Law. Prof. Kube is an internal member of the University Council.
Those who have left the previously eleven-person University Council are Leon Köpfle and Prof. Dr Thomas Pfeiffer, internal members, and Prof. Dr Marion A. Weissenberger-Eibl, an external member.
External members at a glance
Saori Dubourg, member of the BASF SE Board of Executive Directors until February 2023 and responsible for crop protection, construction chemicals and bioscience research as well as the Europe region (on the University Council since 2018)
Dr Annette Julius, Secretary General of the German Academic Scholarship Foundation (Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes) (on the University Council since 2021)
Prof. Dr Hanns-Peter Knaebel, CEO of K6 SOLUTIONS (on the University Council since 2012, chairman since 2015)
Dr Tilman Krauch, member of the Board of Management at Freudenberg & Co. KG and CTO of Freudenberg SE (new on the University Council)
Dr Uwe Schroeder-Wildberg, Chairman and CEO of MLP SE (new on the University Council)
Dr Cornelia Schu, Managing Director of the Expert Council on Integration and Migration (SVR) (on the University Council since 2015)
Eva Zauke, Executive Vice President and Global Head of SAP Enterprise Adoption (on the University Council since 2020)
Internal members at a glance
Peter Abelmann, student of philosophy, European art history and sociology (new on the University Council)
Prof. Dr Matthias Bartelmann, research group leader at the Institute for Theoretical Physics (on the University Council since 2021, deputy chairman)
Prof. Dr Katharina Hieke-Kubatzky, research group leader at the Department (Center) of Infectious Diseases of Heidelberg University Hospital (on the University Council since 2015)
Prof. Dr Hanno Kube, Director of the Institute for Public Finance and Tax Law (on the University Council since May 2023)
Prof. Dr Rohini Kuner, Director of the Molecular Pharmacology Department at the Institute of Pharmacology (on the University Board since 2018)