Professor Dr. Dr. h.c. mult. August-Wilhelm Scheer was honored today by the Dr. Theo and Friedl Schoeller Research Center for Business and Society in recognition of his life’s work. Based at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, the Research Center’s mission is to promote responsible behavior in business and society. To support this objective, every year it funds projects by renowned international scholars and up-and-coming academics. At the award ceremony, Professor Peter Mertens, professor of business computing at the University and one of the original driving forces behind the establishment of business computing courses in the German-speaking countries, paid tribute: “With his diverse range of roles, from highly respected research scientist and university professor to successful businessman, plus his various official functions and commitment to culture and science, Professor Scheer is an important role model.”
Scheer, 68, brings these disparate worlds together in a single person and epitomizes the aims of the Schoeller Research Center like no other. As an academic, he lectured at the University of Saarland from 1975 to 2006, where he established one of Germany’s leading institutes for information systems. As an author, he has published more than 30 books and countless articles, which have been translated into eight languages. He is also publisher of the specialist magazine Information Management. As an entrepreneur, he founded international software and consulting firm IDS Scheer AG, which, with a headcount of 3,000 in 2009, became the biggest university spin-off in Europe. In 1997, Scheer established IMC AG, whose supervisory board he chairs. IMC is now the market leader in e-learning, with 200 employees. Scheer took up a political role in the late 1990s, serving as special adviser for innovation, technology, and research to the Minister-President of Saarland until 2009. He has also advised Chancellor Merkel on innovation. Scheer has been president of BITKOM, the German association of IT companies, since 2007. He is also vice-president of the Federation of German Industries (BDI), a member of the senates of the Fraunhofer Gesellschaft and the German Academy of Science and Engineering (acatech), and a member of the Industry-Science Research Alliance set up by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research. A passionate saxophonist, Scheer established the August Wilhelm Scheer Foundation for Science and Art in 2001, whose activities include financing the post of jazz professor at the University of Music in Germany’s Saarland region.
In recognition of his outstanding expertise in the field of software-intensive systems and success as research scientist and entrepreneur, the Fortiss Research Institute at Munich Technical University has appointed Scheer a research fellow. Fortiss has accompanied this appointment with a request to Scheer to contribute his research ideas and projects to the Institute.
