Dominik Engel will strengthen the “courage to innovate”.
FH Prof. Dominik Engel is the new managing director of the Salzburg University of Applied Sciences. The head of the center for secure energy informatics at the Salzburg University of Applied Sciences emerged from a multi-stage process as the best-matured. He will take up the new position on September 1, 2022. With a management from the scientific field, the owners AK and WK want to strengthen teaching and research.
The sponsors of the Salzburg University of Applied Sciences, the Chamber of Commerce and the Salzburg Chamber of Labour, initiated a reorganization process at the Salzburg University of Applied Sciences in 2021. The strong growth of the FH with currently 3,200 students, 400 employees and 12,000 graduates makes it necessary to adapt the management structures and processes. “We want to achieve a stronger profile, position ourselves better in the educational competition and create the basis for further growth,” explains the Chairman of the Supervisory Board, LAbg. Hans Scharfetter the reorganization. “In the interest of Salzburg as a business and work location, the FH should become even more of an asset of the state for the training of skilled workers at an academic level and for innovation at all levels,” emphasizes WKS Director Dr. Manfred Pammer. Mag.a Cornelia Schmidjell, Director of AK Salzburg: “The newly established FH should attract people from all walks of life with its special appeal and enable them to proactively shape the major future challenges in work and society. This particular attractiveness includes teachers, researchers and network partners in science and society.”
For this purpose, a new teaching structure with six departments and their management was decided in April. The FH degree programs have been grouped into six areas:
- Eco-friendly engineering and circular design
- Industrial computer science & digitization
- Creative Technologies
- business tourism
- health sciences
- Applied Social Sciences
In the course of the organizational reform, the aim was also to create a sole managing director position from the scientific area. Instead of the previous two managing directors, one managing director will now have overall responsibility for the FH.
The two previous managing directors Mag. Doris Walter and Mag. Raimund Ribitsch, who have successfully built up the FH in recent years, take a step back and support the sole managing director as authorized signatories.
Thanks to Doris Walter and Raimund Ribitsch
Chairman of the Supervisory Board Labg. Hans Scharfetter and the owner representatives Dr. Pammer and Mag. Schmidjell thank Mag. Ribitsch and Dr. Walter expressly for her outstanding achievements in the interest of the Salzburg University of Applied Sciences. Raimund Ribitsch has been managing director since 2000, Dr. Walter since 2006. During this time, the University of Applied Sciences has become an essential quality factor for the Salzburg location. “Through their work, Raimund Ribitsch and Doris Walter have created an orderly, sustainable and efficient basis for the growth of the University of Applied Sciences. The fact that the Salzburg University of Applied Sciences is on a sound financial footing today and that the courses, research and infrastructure of the Urstein and Kuchl campuses have developed extremely well is mainly thanks to the two dedicated managers,” says Scharfetter, Schmidjell and Pammer in unison. Both hand over a well-established organization, academically and organizationally. The most important thing: The FH Salzburg graduates are well trained, job-ready and are in high demand on the job market.
The most recent employee survey 2022 also shows very pleasing results. The subject of job satisfaction is particularly positive in the survey: 80% of those surveyed are very satisfied with their work at the university.
Special thanks also go to Raimund Ribitsch for his commitment to Austria’s universities of applied sciences. As President of the Austrian University of Applied Sciences Conference, he successfully campaigned for more than 55,000 students at 21 universities of applied sciences and 45 locations in 501 courses for four years. During his tenure, the highest increase in the federal government’s study place requirements in the history of the University of Applied Sciences was achieved.
“Dominik Engel as MD and Raimund Ribitsch and Doris Walter will form a strong management team for the further development of our university of applied sciences,” confirm the chairman of the supervisory board, Scharfetter, Manfred Pammer and Cornelia Schmidjell.
Dominik Engel will start on September 1st
An international process was initiated to search for a new managing director. Accompanied by a personnel consulting firm, a shortlist was filtered out of 60 applications. From the multi-stage hearings, FH-Prof. private lecturer Dipl.-Ing. Mag. Dr. Dominik Engel came out on top. He will take over the management of the Salzburg University of Applied Sciences from September 1st.
“In Prof. Engel we have gained an outstanding expert with a high scientific reputation and proven management qualities. It is also positive to note that Prof. Engel comes from the Salzburg University of Applied Sciences. That means we have top people in our ranks who don’t have to shy away from any international comparison,” stated WKS director Dr. Pammer tight. AK director Mag.a Cornelia Schmidjell adds: “Professor Engel convinced us with his special expertise, external ambitions and his leadership skills both internally and externally. We particularly approve of his declared goals such as interdisciplinarity, social permeability, advancement of women and cooperation.”
Expand the secret of the success of the Salzburg University of Applied Sciences
Dominik Engel was able to convince the committees with his concept for the future of the University of Applied Sciences. “Among other things, I’m concerned with even more internationalization and interdisciplinarity and more social permeability in the course of study,” said the designated managing director of the Salzburg University of Applied Sciences.
- In the next five years, Dominik Engel will anchor the Salzburg University of Applied Sciences even better in the international innovation and research community with an internationalization strategy. The FH should thus offer students better starting points for internships or semesters abroad, but also become more interesting for international lecturers.
- His credo “Courage to innovate” has already been largely accommodated with the new division of teaching and research into future-oriented departments. “Exactly these are the central future fields in which the economy and society are developing. The Salzburg University of Applied Sciences will probably have to be both a strong driving force and a trainer here,” Engel stated.
- Greater social permeability is important to Dominik Engel. Young people from non-academic households should also be able to study at the Salzburg University of Applied Sciences.
- Last but not least, the coming CEO of the Salzburg University of Applied Sciences would like to enforce a sharpening of the training goals. The universities of applied sciences have set out to offer specialist training at an academic level, but with a strong practical orientation. “That is the secret of the success of the FH sector. That’s what the students want and that’s what Salzburg needs as a business and work location!”
biography
FH Prof. dr Dominik Engel, born on January 20, 1978 in Innsbruck, has had a remarkable academic education and career. The habilitated computer scientist can refer to studies in the field of technical sciences, English and American studies and computer science, which he completed with distinction. Before he came to the Salzburg University of Applied Sciences in 2010, he worked as a research assistant at the Universities of Salzburg and Bremen and included software for Bank Austria and for the US software company Windriver. From 2008 to 2010 Dominik Engel was International Product Manager for Content Security at Sony DADC Austria. In 2010 he was employed at the Salzburg University of Applied Sciences as a full-time employee in teaching and research on the “Information Technology & System Management” course, where he was appointed professor at the University of Applied Sciences in 2011. Engel finally chose the future of energy networks as his research focus, first as head of the Josef Ressel Center for “User-Oriented Smart Grid Privacy, Security and Control” and finally as head of the Center for Secure Energy Informatics since January 2018. Dominik Engel is married and father two children.