AS AN ORGANIZATION
The Hochschule Ruhr West (HRW) chose a matrix structure at its founding. Thus, initially, HRW was organized into institutes, degree programs, and service areas, but not into faculties. The degree programs were intended to be flexible, allowing instructors from all institutes to participate without the constraints of a specific faculty.
This enabled HRW to design interdisciplinary and flexible degree programs, quickly accommodating needs from the business and market. Challenges, however, included the high coordination effort, mainly due to the multitude of decision-makers, and the difficulties for students to participate, for example, through student councils.
Therefore, after a comprehensive internal and external analysis, the Hochschule Ruhr West decided to evolve the matrix organization into a matrix-supported departmental structure. In this process, the seven institutes of the university were merged into four faculties. The previously established institutes remain within the faculties in the form of competency clusters.
The introduced degree programs are assigned to the four faculties. A prerequisite for this transition is that the transfer of teaching staff between the individual faculties continues. The difference lies particularly in the fact that both instructors and students belong to a fixed organizational unit with a dean as a permanent contact person. Additionally, other central elements of the matrix organization, such as central room allocation and organization of teaching interconnections, are retained.
The university is led by the executive board, consisting of the president, chancellor, vice president for studies and teaching, and vice president for research and transfer. Other organs or committees include the university council and the senate