Prof. Dr. Singh, what do you do in your innovation professorship?

In my teaching innovation professorship in Biomedical Engineering, the focus is on developing and implementing an accompanying and subject-specific entrepreneurship education. The integration of the course content into selected existing courses is intended to provide students not only with the basics of entrepreneurial activity, but also with expertise in the areas of regulation and approval and quality management systems in medical technology. After all, these two topics are so fundamental that they have to be considered from the outset for a start-up in our industry. Specifically, my work involves creating curricula, designing courses and supervising entrepreneurial projects. My main goal is to introduce students to entrepreneurial work, whether through project-based assignments or start-up activities.

How could other lecturers, students and researchers (at OTH) benefit from your projects?

I definitely see the potential for other lecturers, students and researchers at OTH to benefit. For example, through my experience with new teaching methods (such as action learning), which they can integrate into their own departments. Students also have the opportunity to work on entrepreneurial projects under selected, real-life conditions. This naturally requires interdisciplinary work, even across faculty and university boundaries. Researchers can benefit from cooperation opportunities with existing and emerging projects; there are plenty of topics for collaboration.

What motivated you to want to realize a teaching innovation?

On the one hand, I was motivated by the conviction that practical entrepreneurship education in the medical technology sector creates significant added value for students and contributes to the implementation of innovations in the industry. The opportunity to give students the tools and skills to successfully turn technological innovations into reality is an exciting challenge that drives me. On the other hand, and this is quite clear, the topics of admissions and quality don't exactly sound hip. After my own studies, I initially tried to steer clear of this dry-sounding world myself. In the end, I ended up in it and was able to gain a lot of interesting experience over the years. As part of the teaching innovation professorship, I integrate the latest university didactic methods into my teaching in order to make these topics as exciting as possible for the students.

Why is the topic of entrepreneurship in the medical technology sector particularly close to your heart?

Medical technology innovations can have a considerable benefit for society. We operate in an industry that has the potential to support and improve people's lives and save lives. I believe in our mission to bring helping technologies to society. At the same time, regulatory requirements and quality standards are particularly demanding and crucial in this industry. I want to help ensure that promising ideas and innovations do not go unused due to a lack of expertise in these areas.

What experiences do you want students to gain?

The teaching philosophy of my innovation professorship focuses on imparting knowledge to students through their own experiences, which are based on practical action and iterative learning. The students should primarily recognize that every product idea they have is initially just a hypothesis. We then test this hypothesis with potential users as early as possible. This means that the students also expand their social skills in communicating with medical professionals. We are very lucky that the University Hospital Regensburg is in the immediate vicinity and that we have a lively exchange. Ultimately, it is also about entrepreneurial thinking and action. In this context, students should also learn about the special features of the medical device industry that need to be taken into account in their engineering work. Anyone who then wants to set up a start-up (which is not a must) will receive the best possible support from our infrastructure at OTH and contacts beyond our university.