Prof. Dr-Ing. Ulrich Wagner is the newly-appointed Director of Energy and Transport for the DLR Management Board
3 March 2010
Prof. Dr-Ing. Ulrich Wagner
The German Aerospace Center (Deutsches Zentrum für Luft und Raumfahrt; DLR) has a new Director for Energy and Transport: Prof. Dr-Ing. Ulrich Wagner. Age 54, Prof. Wagner holds a doctorate in electrical engineering, has been Professor (Ordinarius) of Energy Economics and Applications Engineering at the Technical University of Munich (Technische Universität München; TUM) and, at the same time, Scientific Director of the Munich-based Energy Research Institute (Forschungsstelle für Energiewirtschaft; FfE).
On 1 March, Professor Wagner moved into his new workplace at the DLR Headquarters in Cologne. "I am looking forward to my new task at DLR and would like first and foremost to provide structure rather than manage," stated Prof. Wagner at the start of his five-year term. This new member of the DLR Board of Management firmly believes in the significance of the ‘megatrends’ of energy and transport research, such as electrically powered mobility or the desert electricity project known as DESERTEC. He wishes to further develop the potential of mega-projects of this kind over the next few years. "We need ambitious objectives of this kind for the long overdue paradigm shift in the transport and energy business," believes Prof. Wagner.
The groundwork for this paradigm shift will be laid by research of energy and transport concepts that favour effective forms of resource and environmental conservation. "DLR offers great prospects for this, as well as the right framework," explains Prof. Wagner. For his part, he has focused intensely since the early days of his scientific career on the questions of energy research and alternative drive and propulsion concepts. The father of three, Wagner states that his interest in this field was triggered by personal experiences back in the early 1970s. In particular, the founding of the Club of Rome, which dealt with questions of import for the future of humanity and the finite nature of natural resources and economic growth, was an event that exerted a strong influence.
The son of diplomats, Prof. Wagner was born in 1955 in Passau and grew up in Bonn, Moscow, Antwerp, Brussels and Bogotá (Colombia). From 1976 to 1981 he studied electrical enginering in Bogotá and Munich.