Bringing technology into management: the call of reality going beyond industrial management at the ETH

The accelerated technological change has become a fact and will continue to challenge industrial and societal development into the next century. In the conviction that a technical university must take responsibility not only for technology research but also for its management, the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology has, since the 1980s, been extending its activities to take this challenge into account. Going beyond the traditional discipline of “Industrial Engineering” the Technology Management Program has been established in research and education, directed towards graduate students as well as executives of technology-intensive enterprises. Its vision is to close a critical gap between the not yet adequate management awareness of technology and the omnipresent “technology reality” in most enterprises