What is the appropriate role for science and engineering in a world where political certainties are dissolving while global problems such as climate change need solutions? How do research and education need to adapt? Prof. Thomas F. Hofmann, the President of the Technical University of Munich (TUM), addressed these issues on January 20, 2020.

Following his studies in food chemistry at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, Thomas F. Hofmann obtained his doctorate and completed his postdoctoral studies at the Technical University of Munich (TUM). After becoming deputy director of the German Research Center for Food Chemistry in 1999, he was appointed Chair of Food Chemistry at the University of Münster in 2002 and returned to TUM in 2007 as full professor of Food Chemistry and Molecular Sensory Science. He coordinated the Knowledge & Innovation Community EIT Food of the European Institute of Technology (EIT) in 2016 and, since 2017, has been member of the EIT Food Board of Directors. From 2017 to 2019, he was director of the new Leibniz-Institute for Food Systems Biology at TUM. From 2009 to 2019, he served as Senior Vice President Research & Innovation of TUM. Since October 1, 2019, he has been president of TUM.