"As someone who has always enjoyed working in a research and teaching environment, I wanted to focus more on the university sector again," says Gutmann, explaining the motivation for his move to the University of Wuppertal. For 25 years, he worked at Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf and in particular at Düsseldorf University Hospital. "My responsibilities there focussed heavily on clinical operations and patient care. Research and teaching were somewhat neglected."

In Wuppertal, the 57-year-old and his new team will now focus on driving forward the digitalisation that has long been underway and integrating new technologies into the existing infrastructure in a meaningful way. Michael Gutmann knows: "If the University of Wuppertal becomes more and more digital, then IT security will also become increasingly important." Finding the right way to enable freedom in teaching and research while still offering a secure, digital working environment is another key challenge.

According to Gutmann, a third important task is to accompany the transition to a modern IT infrastructure: "The growing complexity will mean that the University of Wuppertal will no longer do everything itself, but will work on topics in cooperation with other universities, the state or in the cloud. Together with all those involved, we need to find a way to realise modern, IT-supported processes for the future."