Professional development at university level

Within the Volkswagen Group Academy, the AutoUni ensures the availability of specialized academic knowledge. The aim is to increase the technical quality in Volkswagen’s vocational groups and to promote networking among experts. Nine institutes work in conjunction with the vocational group academies and partner universities to design development programs for the Group’s vocational group experts. In addition, a wide variety of professional development formats are designed in order to disseminate the Group’s wealth of internal knowledge as well as that of university professors and business specialists, and to generate new academic insights. The 2015 offering included professional development formats on sustainability, e-mobility and product electrification as well as an online course on materials for experts within the Group provided in cooperation with Stanford University.

The AutoUni cooperates with internationally renowned universities, institutes and research centers on a variety of research projects, dissertations and theses. At the end of 2015, more than 530 doctoral students were engaged in research at the various Volkswagen Group companies in Germany, investigating forward-looking, Company-related issues.