In der aktuellen Folge des Podcasts „Born & Kepler“ diskutieren Andreas Deptolla und Prof. Benedikt Berger (Juniorprofessur für Digitale Transformation und Gesellschaft) über die realen Herausforderungen und Chancen des Einsatzes von Künstlicher Intelligenz (KI) in Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft. Prof. Berger teilt Einblicke aus seiner akademischen Laufbahn und beleuchtet aktuelle Entwicklungen in der Medienlandschaft – darunter den Einfluss von Influencern, neuen Plattformen und aktuellen Trends. Auch der Einsatz von KI-Tools wie ChatGPT und DeepL in der Lehre sowie die Vorbereitung von Studierenden auf eine zunehmend KI-geprägte Arbeitswelt sind zentral Themen.

In the latest episode of the “Born & Kepler” podcast, Andreas Deptolla speaks with Prof. Benedikt Berger (Junior Professorship for Digital Transformation and Society) about the real-world challenges and opportunities of using artificial intelligence (AI) in business and society.

Prof. Berger shares insights from his academic career and discusses current developments in the media landscape – including the influence of influencers, emerging platforms, and ongoing digital trends. Key topics also include the use of AI tools like ChatGPT and DeepL in teaching, as well as preparing students for a job market increasingly shaped by AI.

The conversation further explores responsible data management and governance, human-AI interaction, ethical questions surrounding predictive policing, and broader legal and societal implications.

The episode is now available on Spotify and all major podcast platforms.

Am 03. April 2025 nahmen 12 Schülerinnen am Girls’Day am Institut für Wirtschaftsinformatik teil und begaben sich auf eine Reise durch die Welt der Wirtschaftsinformatik. Mitarbeitende aus verschiedenen Bereichen des Instituts hatten für die Schülerinnen ein spannendes Programm zusammengestellt. Der Girls’Day – Mädchen-Zukunftstag ist eine bundesweite Aktion, bei der Mädchen ab der 5. Klasse Berufe und Studienfächer kennenlernen können, in denen Frauen bisher eher selten vertreten sind – vor allem in Technik, IT, Handwerk und Naturwissenschaften. Ziel ist es, geschlechterbezogene Berufswahlklischees aufzubrechen und neue Perspektiven für die Zukunft zu eröffnen.  

On April 1, 2025, the Department of Information Systems welcomed Dr. Johannes Sedlmeir as Acting Professor for Statistics, Security & Trust.

After completing his master’s degree in Theoretical and Mathematical Physics, he did  his doctorate at the University of Bayreuth and the Branch Business & Information Systems Engineering  of the Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Information Technologie FIT, focusing on the challenges and potential of using blockchain technology in organizations. Since October 2022, he has been conducting research in the FINATRAX (Digital Financial Services and Cross-Organisational Digital Transformations) research group at the Interdisciplinary Centre for Security, Reliability and Trust (SnT) at the University of Luxembourg. There, he investigated both economic and technical aspects of new digital technologies, particularly in the field of applied cryptography. In addition to blockchain technology, a particular focus of his research lies in digital wallets (the underlying paradigm is also known as ‘self-sovereign identity’). Dr. Sedlmeir is also a lecturer at the Norwegian School of Economics (NHH), where he holds block seminars on blockchain technology and digital identity management twice a year.

We would like to welcome Dr Johannes Sedlmeir to the Department of Information Systems and asked him a few questions at the beginning of his work:

Dear Dr. Sedlmeir, after your time in Luxembourg, you are continuing your academic career at the University of Münster. What motivated you to return to Germany and teach and research at the University of Münster?

Firstly, the University of Münster in general and the Deparment of Information Systems in particular enjoy an excellent reputation, and I am sure that the university and the European Research Center for Information Systems (ERCIS) founded there offer the perfect environment for my interdisciplinary research. In addition, there are many points of contact with my new colleagues' areas of focus, both in terms of methodology (e.g. design science research) and content (e.g. new mobility concepts, the detection and combating of disinformation and the management of cross-organisational processes), which I would like to discuss with them. I would also like to contribute to establishing the topics of digital identity management and applications of modern cryptography in the areas of security, data protection and trust in data at a new location and to bring them into teaching and research projects.

I am also very much looking forward to being able to give large and, for a Information Systems  degree program, highly technically-oriented basic lectures at the University of Münster, as my previous work had a stronger focus on industry cooperation and specialised seminars and I was therefore limited to smaller and more specialized courses. I have enjoyed teaching since I was a student and I hope that I can inspire the students in the lectures for my research topics and at the same time emphasize the relevance of basic education for current challenges in society and the economy.

One of your main areas of research is digital identities. What exactly is this about and what fascinates you most about this topic?

Digital identity management is one of the basic prerequisites for successful digital transformation, both in terms of IT security and the efficiency of processes based on data exchange and access rights. Today's identity management is extremely fragmented – both for end users as well as for organizations and networked devices. This inevitably leads to low user-friendliness, security gaps, high costs and lock-in effects for providers of solutions for IAM systems. These challenges can be addressed with a unified, user-centric system that uses modern cryptography and stores machine-verifiable proof of identity locally. At the same time, an approach based on ‘digital wallets’ increases users' control over which data they pass on to which organizations, which can largely address the usual criticism of a lack of data protection in the digital space. Furthermore, reducing the dependencies of digital identity ecosystems is also a key to greater European digital sovereignty, for example as an alternative or supplement to single sign-on solutions from large technology platforms and web PKI. Last but not least, secure digital identities also enable machine-verifiable transaction data, on the basis of which the creation of many digital proofs becomes possible in the first place, especially in cross-organisational processes.

On the other hand, many projects to improve digital identity management have also failed in the past due to various technical and non-technical hurdles. In this respect, I find it very exciting to learn from these attempts and to actively support the hopefully successful implementation this time, both as a scientific observer and by developing innovative solutions for and based on digital identities. I also appreciate the combination of cryptographic and economic aspects in the successful implementation of digital wallets, which make interdisciplinary research necessary and provide a holistic perspective that can also offer valuable insights in other areas of digital transformation.

What research projects are you currently working on?

Similar to the German Fraunhofer Institutes, the SnT is characterised by a very strong industry focus, where research projects are strongly demand-oriented and interdisciplinary. My current favorite projects deal with potential security issues of Bitcoin induced by the quadrennial “halving”, the controversy around qualified website certificates and European digital sovereignty between browser providers, the European Commission and European trust service providers in the context of the amendment of the eIDAS regulation, as well as applications of digital wallets in organizations and general security and privacy challenges arising from the current implementation plan of European digital wallets (EUDI wallets). In addition, I am also working on the development of verifiable data-driven processes between financial institutions and the privacy-oriented tokenization of artworks on public blockchains - the latter is a public research project funded by the Luxembourg Fonds National de la Recherche, which I was able to acquire in collaboration with the APSIA research group for applied cryptography at the SnT and which ultimately attracted me to Luxembourg.

What courses will you be offering students in the future?

I will be offering two lectures and two seminars in the  summer semester 2025. In the bachelor's lecture ‘Security of Distributed Systems’, I will first introduce the general basics of distributed systems and then use this preliminary work to provide an insight into both classic (e.g. security of email and web PKI) and highly topical security-related issues in the context of distributed systems, such as challenges for the security of cryptocurrencies and blockchains as well as digital wallets, where both cryptographic and economic design aspects are crucial. In the master's lecture ‘Trust and Security in Data Science’, I will first highlight challenges regarding access control in cross-organizational data exchange and the verification of the origin and trustworthiness of data.

We will then look at typical problems and paradoxes in data analysis and statistical and cryptographic approaches to solving them. The seminars then delve deeper into more general current issues in European digital wallets and a critical examination of perspectives on the potential and challenges of blockchain technology that are often one-sided or driven by business interests. To give one example: Proponents of bitcoin mining often argue that mining hardware can easily be switched off, thereby stabilizing power grids, promoting the expansion of renewables or using waste heat for heating. However, counter-arguments are sometimes ignored, such as the fact that mining is initially an additional consumer from a grid perspective, that the high investments in mining hardware make grid-friendly behavior with volatile generation economically difficult and that heating with waste heat makes little sense in summer and has major efficiency disadvantages compared to a heat pump in winter. So, you can see that I approach passionately controversial topics with a high degree of interdisciplinarity from the perspective of business informatics in order to provide a balanced perspective that can then inform the broader discourse.

In the coming winter semester, I will be giving the introductory lecture on data and probabilities for business IT specialists, which I am particularly looking forward to as a former mathematical physicist.

Is there a course that you are particularly interested in and would like to take yourself?

This is probably the most difficult of the questions because there are simply too many topics that interest me. As an enthusiastic supporter of electromobility, for example, I would be interested in courses on battery management or the quantitative evaluation of data on battery health during operation, the coordination of charging processes in a more system or grid-friendly way and more user-friendly charging planning and payment. On the other hand, I find the mathematical foundations of the latest generation of artificial intelligence (large language models) very exciting and would like to delve even deeper into the unfortunately often underestimated challenges and possibilities of supplementing these with fundamentally different (e.g. neuro-symbolic) approaches.

Am 29. März 2025 fand der erste Hochschultag für Alumni statt. Der Ehemaligenverein der Wirtschaftswissenschaftlichen Fakultät, AlumniUM, hieß Alumni und Studieninteressierte willkommen und berichtete über die Entwicklungen der letzten Jahre, die aktuellen Herausforderungen und die Fortschritte unserer Studienprogramme. Ein weiterer Höhepunkt war die Führung durch das Juridicum/Oeconomicum, insbesondere durch das Ende 2023 wieder eröffnete, neu gestaltete Forum Oeconomicum, die Fachbereichsbibliothek der Wirtschaftswissenschaftlichen Fakultät.

As of April 1, 2025, God’sgift Okoebor (M.Sc.) has joined the Junior Professorship for Digital Transformation and Societey as a research assistant and doctoral candidate.

She holds a Master of Science in Information Systems from the University of Münster, where she specialized in Information Management and Business Networks, and a Bachelor of Science in Management Information Systems from Covenant University, Nigeria.

God’sgift brings both academic and practical experience to her role. Her master’s research explored the integration of Generative AI in academic work, highlighting her interest in the intersection of technology and organizational processes. Professionally, she has supported strategic initiatives in digital transformation and data management at BASF Coatings, and has held roles in project management, IT support, and business development across Nigeria and Germany.

Her research interests lie in digital transformation, AI-driven business innovation, and the evolving role of information systems in organizational change.

We wish her the very best and are looking forward to working together!

Im Institut für Wirtschaftsinformatik, Forschungsgruppe Computational Social Science and Systems Analysis (Prof. Dr.-Ing. Christian Grimme) der Universität Münster ist ab dem 01.09.2025 eine Stelle als

On April 7, 2025, the School of Business and Economics and the Department of Information Systems bid farewell to Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. Jörg Becker during his “last” lecture. Since 1990, Jörg Becker has significantly shaped the department and the field of Information Systems. His research has left a lasting impression in the areas of process management, data management, e-government, information modeling, retail information systems and hybrid value creation.

Am 7. April 2025 verabschiedeten die Wirtschaftswissenschaftliche Fakultät und das Institut für Wirtschaftsinformatik Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. Jörg Becker im Rahmen seiner „letzten“ Vorlesung.  Seit 1990 hat Jörg Becker das Institut und den Bereich Wirtschaftsinformatik maßgeblich geprägt. Seine Forschung hinterließ in den Bereichen Prozessmanagement, Datenmanagement, E-Government, Informationsmodellierung, Handelsinformationssysteme und hybride Wertschöpfung einen bleibenden Eindruck.

In the new ranking of the online platform research.com, the University of Münster is ranked 8th among the ‘Best Business and Management Universities in Germany 2025’ (267th worldwide). With Prof Dr Jan vom Brocke in 12th place and Prof Dr Thorsten Hennig-Thurau in 26th place, two of our professors are among the top 30 ‘Best Business and Management Scientists in Germany’.

Im neuen Ranking der Online-Plattform research.com wird die Universität Münster auf Rang 8 der "Best Business and Management Universities in Germany 2025" gelistet (weltweit Rang 267). Mit Prof. Dr. Jan vom Brocke auf Rang 12 und Prof. Dr. Thorsten Hennig-Thurau auf Rang 26 zählen gleich zwei unserer Professor:innen zu den Top 30 der "Best Business and Management Scientists in Germany".

On April 7, 2025, the Department of Information Systems bid farewell to Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. Jörg Becker during his “last” lecture.

Since 1990, Jörg Becker has significantly shaped the department and the field of Information Systems. His research has left a lasting impression in the areas of process management, data management, e-government, information modeling, retail information systems and hybrid value creation.

He is also the founder of the European Research Center for Information Systems (ERCIS) and currently heads the research group “Digital Mittelstadt of the Future”, which researches innovative solutions for the digital transformation of municipalities and local administrations.

As part of the farewell, colleagues, long-time companions and former and current doctoral students looked back on three decades of academic excellence, leadership and mentorship - all wrapped up in a creative and inspiring program.

Fortunately, this is not really a farewell, as Jörg Becker will remain with the department as a senior professor. We would like to thank him warmly and look forward to the next chapter!

Am Lehrstuhl für Wirtschaftsinformatik und Logistik der Universität Münster und dem ERCIS Competence Center for Crisis Management ist für das Interreg-gefördertes Forschungsprojekt CareFlow zum 1. Juli 2025 die Stelle als

On April 1st, around 200 new Bachelor's and Master's students, as well as nearly 40 international incoming students, began their studies at the School of Business and Economics under bright sunshine. The Dean, Prof. Dr. Thomas Langer, opened Orientation Week which was organized by the student council. The incoming students, who are spending a semester abroad in Münster, were welcomed by Sina Heidtke from the School’s International Relations Center. At the Leonardo Campus, the Master's students in the Information Systems program were greeted by program manager Dr. Lena Clever. 

Am 01. April starteten rund 200 Bachelor- und Master-Erstsemester sowie knapp 40 internationale Incomings bei strahlendem Sonnenschein ihr Studium an der Wirtschaftswissenschaftlichen Fakultät. Der Dekan, Prof. Dr. Thomas Langer, eröffnete die O-Woche, die von der Fachschaft Wirtschaftswissenschaften organisiert wurde. Die Incomings, die in Münster ein Auslandssemester absolvieren, wurden von Sina Heidtke vom International Relations Center der Fakultät willkommen geheißen. Am Leonardo-Campus wurden die Master-Studierenden des Studiengangs Information Systems von Programmmanagerin Dr. Lena Clever begrüßt.  

On March 31, 2025, members of the Department Board Meeting gathered for a strategy day at the REACH EUREGIO Start-up Center to shape the future of the department.

The day began with a vision workshop, using the innovative “Lego Serious Play” method. This hands-on approach encouraged creative and collaborative thinking and led to several inspiring models that reflected visions for the future of the department.

In addition, there were stimulating discussions on topics such as teaching, research, and knowledge transfer. Together, participants explored new approaches to strengthen the department’s impact and further development in the field of Information Systems.

A big thank you to everyone who contributed their ideas, creativity, and commitment!

The first (virtual) Town Hall Meeting took place on 28 March 2025 to provide information on organizational and administrative topics and changes, as well as new projects and similar topics at the department. The aim is to improve the flow of information at the department.

The agenda included new staff members, among them a new acting professorship with Dr. Johannes Sedlmeir and numerous new doctoral students from the various chairs. Other topics included teaching, news from the ERCIS, and internal processes.

The meeting also offers employees the opportunity to discuss questions and specific concerns. In future, the Town Hall Meeting will take place once a semester.

Wer an agile Teams denkt, denkt oft an Daily Standups, Scrum Master, Retrospektiven – und vor allem an Geschwindigkeit. Doch während Prozesse und Methoden im Rampenlicht stehen, bleiben die wahren Helden oft im Hintergrund: die Developer. Dabei sind sie es, die Ideen in Code verwandeln, aus Anforderungen erlebbare Funktionen machen und mit jedem Sprint echte Werte liefern. In einem agilen Umfeld sind Developer weit mehr als reine Coder – sie sind kreative Problemlöser, Mitgestalter und Treiber für Innovation. 

Weiterlesen …

Die geplante Einführung des digitalen Euros sorgt für kontroverse Debatten, insbesondere in sozialen Netzwerken. Während Verschwörungserzählungen von einer drohenden „digitalen Diktatur“ sprechen, weisen Fachleute darauf hin, dass bislang keine endgültigen Entscheidungen getroffen wurden. So äußert sich auch Prof. Schneider, Professur für Finance an der Universität Münster, in einem Beitrag der Tagesschau.

In der Frankfurter Allgemeinen Zeitung (FAZ) vom 31. März ist ein gemeinsamer Gastbeitrag von Prof. Peter Kajüter, Inhaber des Lehrstuhls für BWL, insbesondere Internationale Unternehmensrechnung, an der Universität Münster, und Barbara E. Weißenberger, Inhaberin des Lehrstuhls für BWL, insbesondere Controlling und Accounting, an der Heinrich-Heine-Universität Düsseldorf erschienen.