The Graduate School of Logistics (GS of Logistics) is an institution of TU Dortmund in cooperation with the respective faculties of the universities Duisburg/Essen, Paderborn and Münster. The Graduate School wants to support basic research and economy-oriented, application-oriented research by funding at least 30 percent of all doctoral candidates with scholarships directly from economy. Another 30 jobs are to be raised by the land North Rhine-Westphalia, the Fraunhofer Society and other research foundations. The GS of Logistics aligns itself into the strategic goals of LogistikCampus Ruhr, an initiative of the land NRW. The Graduate School of Logistics was officially opened on October 1st 2009.
Rector Prof. Ursula Gather signed the contract for the "Graduate School of Logistics "
The GS of Logistics sets itself a limited number of work fields and research lines, respectively, so that the cross–linking of works from research disciplines for logistics (engineering sciences, economics, informatics) can take place purposefully. Research in the context of the Graduate School of Logistics strives for a stronger application-orientation, to be able to educate even better managers in logistics in future. The funding of the scholarships by commercial and industrial enterprises emphasizes how big the demand is.
Logistics research urgently needs this extension of capacity:
The demands on logistics and the emerging research questions are subject to a big dynamic. Globalization, new markets, shorter product cycles, climate change are just some keywords.
To attract funding for current research questions in the usual way is very time-consuming. To be able to find research staff when it is needed involves a high risk. To organize basic and applied research in an integrated way requires a certain size of the teams at university chairs and institutes.
With regard to long-term research tasks industry is more and more prone to choose single smaller research contracts over order packages. That limits strategic initial research.
To find the best and most qualified junior staff is only possible with attractive offers.
All these problems of purposeful logistics research can be alleviated if not even solved by GS of Logistics. Under the supervision of university teachers 60 doctoral candidates and scholars represent the research capacity with which the established research teams of the universities and institutes in the region can effectively be extended and completed.
Logistics research as a whole serves the region, its science, economy and the specialist area in various ways