Simmersfeld. For the twelfth time, the Friedrich and Elisabeth Boysen Foundation has invited the doctoral candidates it supports to the Northern Black Forest to learn firsthand about the current status of their respective research projects. The Boysen Doctoral Student Days were originally initiated by Rolf Geisel, who served as CEO of the Boysen Group from 1985 to 2025 and has since served as Chairman of the Supervisory Board: “Our stated goal is to integrate excellent research with industrial application, which has become vastly more important given the current economic conditions.”

In his welcoming remarks at the BAK Development Center in Simmersfeld, Boysen Group CEO Dr. Till Scharf quickly summed up the company’s expectations: “We are living in times of multiple crises and technological challenges that are putting not only the automotive industry under immense pressure to change. Against this backdrop, our foundation’s guiding principle of ‘supporting and challenging’ is more important than ever.”

Addressing the funded doctoral candidates directly, Scharf urged: “The research projects must not be an end in themselves. Rather, promising theoretical approaches must be transformed into new products – and thus into industrialization – with passion and entrepreneurial drive, in order to secure jobs here in Germany.”

Michael Fischer, Senior Vice President of Development at the Boysen Group and a member of the Boysen Foundation’s Executive Board, echoed this sentiment: “The interdisciplinary exchange we facilitate once a year through the Doctoral Student Days is a key to success. When participants benefit from expertise in other disciplines and industrial practice, synergies emerge that can significantly advance a research project.” The stated goal is to take young scientists out of their academic comfort zone and prepare them for the tough demands of the real world.

In addition to two days filled with in-depth technical presentations, the traditional get-together evening at the Landgasthof Hirsch in Überberg also provided the setting for more in-depth discussions. In a relaxed atmosphere, CEO Scharf provided insights into the group’s strategic direction and explained how Boysen is consistently positioning itself for the future with new product groups – including battery cases for electric vehicles, hydrogen tank systems for commercial vehicles, and stationary flow battery storage systems.

Scharf emphasized that “the Boysen Group has also continued to grow for years in its core business of exhaust technology, which serves as our foundation for making targeted investments in technological transformation.”

The event concluded with a tour of the state-of-the-art production facilities at Boysen’s Simmersfeld site, which once again demonstrated to the doctoral students where their theoretical approaches must ultimately be put into practice: in the real-world production environment of an industrial company.

About the Boysen Foundation:

Since its founding in 1996, the Friedrich and Elisabeth Boysen Foundation has mobilized an eight-figure funding amount to enable forward-looking research projects in the field of environmental protection, particularly at the University of Stuttgart, the Technical University (TU) of Dresden, and the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT). Today, the foundation is one of the most important funding institutions in Baden-Württemberg.

A key cornerstone is the Boysen-TU Dresden Graduate College, which was established at TU Dresden in 2012 as an interdisciplinary platform to holistically address complex issues – including those related to the hydrogen economy – by combining technical engineering expertise with socio-political topics.

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The core business of the Boysen Group, headquartered in Altensteig (Baden-Württemberg), is the development and manufacture of high-performance exhaust systems and components for passenger cars, commercial vehicles and off-highway applications. In addition to its three main customers, Audi, BMW and Mercedes-Benz, the exhaust technology specialist works for the German car manufacturers Volkswagen and Porsche, the British brands Bentley and Rolls-Royce, the commercial vehicle manufacturers Daimler Truck and MAN, and in the off-highway sector for Krauss Maffei, mtu, Voith and others.

The Boysen Group has been driving technological transformation forward since 2016. With new product groups such as battery cases, hydrogen tank systems, control elements and electronic components, the next chapter in the company's more than 100-year history is being written. Other components of the future strategy include the manufacture of energy storage systems (redox flow battery systems) and fuel cells, as well as basic and product development in the field of hydrogen technology.

The Boysen Group is a foundation-owned company and currently employs around 5,100 people at 30 plants in Germany and abroad. In addition to its development sites in Altensteig, Nagold and Simmersfeld, Boysen has production plants in Altensteig, Simmersfeld, Nagold, Heubach, Steißlingen, Salching, Ingolstadt, Plauen and Achim, as well as in France, Egypt, South Africa, India, China, Mexico, Hungary, Serbia and the USA.

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Note:

The photos attached to this press release may only be used in connection with this specific press release and not in conjunction with other reports or articles about the Boysen Group. Any other use requires the written consent of the Boysen Group.

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For further questions please contact:

Christian Grimm
Marketing Team Leader
BIN Boysen Innovationszentrum Nagold GmbH & Co. KG
Carl-Friedrich-Gauss-Str. 4
72202 Nagold
Tel. 07452/8408-200
Fax 07452/8408-8200
E-mail christian.grimm(at)bin.boysen-online.de

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