23.03.2026

Prof. Andreas Lachner receives Momentum Funding from the Volkswagen Foundation for Adaptive Learning with AI

Andreas Lachner, Professor of Education with a focus on Teaching and Learning with Digital Media and Co-Director of the Tübingen Center for Digital Education (TüCeDE) at the University of Tübingen, has been awarded a grant through the Volkswagen Foundation’s renowned "Momentum" initiative for newly appointed professors. The project will receive approximately €950,000 in funding over a four-year period.

With this support, Prof. Lachner will further develop his professorship into a transdisciplinary hub aimed at enabling adaptive learning in schools through Artificial Intelligence. While AI (particularly in the form of Large Language Models, LLMs) is considered a highly promising tool for adaptive learning, there has been a lack of systematic, evidence-based integration of these technologies into everyday school practice.

The Momentum project addresses this gap by strategically linking expertise from machine learning, data science, and AI with insights from educational science and classroom practice to develop and scientifically evaluate AI-supported adaptive systems. A central component of the project involves utilizing big data from real-world educational contexts to gain robust and generalizable insights. Working in close collaboration with local and international partners, the project creates an interface between educational research, subject-specific didactics, and AI. At the heart of the initiative is a co-constructive development process: teachers, students, and school administrators are actively involved in the design of the systems to ensure that the resulting solutions are practical, effective, and scalable.

This funding will strengthen the international visibility of the professorship and facilitate new collaborations, while simultaneously establishing a solid foundation for the development of AI-driven personalized education.

Contact: 

Andreas Lachner 

Institute of Education and Tübingen Center for Digital Education (TüCeDE), University of Tübingen 

andreas.lachner@uni-tuebingen.de

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