ETH expands to Germany thanks to donation from Lidl founder
Published: Friday, Dec 8th 2023, 12:10
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ETH Zurich is expanding into Germany. It has agreed a cooperation with the foundation of Lidl founder Dieter Schwarz. The plan is to establish a new teaching and research center in Heilbronn, the hometown of Lidl's founder.
"Lidl is worth it" - the advertising slogan of the German discount chain now also applies to ETH. Thanks to donations from the Dieter Schwarz Foundation (DSS), around 20 new professorships are to be created in Zurich and on the new Heilbronn education campus over the next 30 years, as ETH President Joël Mesot said at a media conference on Friday.
The new professorships will focus on artificial intelligence and other aspects of digital transformation as well as the circular economy. As a first step, two new professorships will be established in Zurich in the fields of computer science and data science.
First courses in 2025
Five more professorships are to be established in Heilbronn next year. According to Mesot, the first courses are to be held in 2025. Those responsible agreed that more than half of the 20 professorships should be located in Heilbronn.
There are already branches of the Technical University of Munich and the Fraunhofer Gesellschaft on the campus there. There are partnerships with other renowned international universities such as Oxford and Stanford. The campus currently has around 7500 students. According to Mesot, Switzerland should also benefit from the international network in Heilbronn.
Managing Director Reinhold Geilsdörfer said that the foundation does not wish to disclose the exact amount that the DSS is making available to ETH. At the request of the founder, no figures are generally communicated. After the ETH Center in Singapore, the location in Heilbronn in Baden-Württemberg will be the second ETH branch abroad.
The richest person in Germany
According to Forbes, 84-year-old Lidl founder Dieter Schwarz is the richest person in Germany with an estimated fortune of 39.2 billion US dollars in 2023.
The Schwarz Group includes the Lidl and Kaufland retail chains, among others. According to its own information, the group employs around 600,000 people worldwide and generates sales of around 160 billion euros.
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