Graduate School 'Human Factors: Information, Assistance, Automation'

The University Management, in an agreement with the Saxon State Ministry of Science and the Arts, committed itself to strengthening and extending the profile line 'Human Factors in Technology'. In this context, the Graduate School 'Human Factors: Information, Assistance, Automation' was established in June 2015.

The Graduate School will focus on various combinations of co-operation partners with highly developed technical systems, for whom a number of distinct distribution patterns are possible. The aspect 'Information' yields the responsibility and competence of execution to the human, who acts on the basis of information provided by the technical system. The aspect 'Assistance' describes the partial and temporary acquisition of functions and tasks by the technical system. In turn, 'Automation' indicates the extensive and even thorough acquisition and conduct of activities by technical systems. This allocation of tasks away from the human over to the technical system is described as automation in human-technology systems.

PhD students with interdisciplinary research topics will be accepted as members of the Graduate School. PhD students from different departments are expected to form study groups which work on subjects from various fields, such as media, demography, mobility/autonomous driving and production with assistance systems.

In the medium and long term it is planned to attract funding for scholarships in order to facilitate the educational and professional development of PhD candidates.