Sustainability can be seen in the parking lot

A few years ago it was said at the University in Pforzheim: "The success of a professor can be seen in the parking lot." The professors of the Institute for Industrial Ecology (INEC) now have subtended something to it: service bicycles, in fact with electric motor assistance, but still bicycles!

Lack of office space, a new course and a growing institute are the reasons, why parts of the Faculty of Business and Law have now been outsourced. Since the beginning of the year the Institute and the faculty and staff of the Resource Efficiency program are now locatedin rented rooms in Innotec on Blücherstraße. Originally renovated  offices in the towers in the Tiefenbronner street should be provided for the INEC, but the fire safety measures in the stairwells delayed such a move. By contrast, the Institute bursting at the seams, last jostled up to 5 employees in an office.

The INEC has now grown to 12 employees and five professors. Last year could be raised over 400,000 external funding - and rising. And by the end of 2013, presumably there will  be three more professors.Since a space solution was urgently needed.

The departure from the campus the head of the Institute, Prof. Mario Schmidt, sees with a laughing and a crying eye: "The rooms are great.But the lecture mode runs on the mountain. For us this is a significant swing effort. Since most people and even the professors of the Institute for Applied Ecology, take the public transport to work (nomen est omen),  a quick and easy solution to the problem of mobility was necessary". Schmidt: "I was only ready for the move, when we get suitable service vehicles." Ideally, it would have been solar-fueled electromobiles. Ultimately we got them, but only "two-wheeled". The university has purchased 5 Pedelecs with which the professors must now commute between Blücherstraße and Tiefenbronner street.

Schmidt: "With bikes without auxiliary engines we would be totally sweaty in the lectures. So we are just "something" out of breath, because it is still sporting. He wins something positive from the situation. Most employees commute from the suburbs to Pforzheim. From the station, the Innotec is easy to reach. The disadvantage is that the other infrastructure of the university is missing: the closeness of the administration, the library and the cafeteria. For the course on the mountain is a room as REM "base" set, in which the professors can provide office hours and contact hours for the students, because for the students a constant commuting between the venues is not reasonable. Therefore Professor Schmidt and his colleagues now have to pedal sportive.