A Fireside Chat on Tradition and Family Business
At the heart of the evening was a Kamingespräch between Prof. Dr. Hannes Rothe and Dr. Stauder. Since 1867, the name Stauder has stood for brewing in Essen. As an independent family business now in its sixth generation, the brewery offered a rich starting point for the conversation. Personally and with a good deal of humour, Dr. Stauder shared what it takes to preserve craft and character over such a long period of time, and how a family brewery holds its own in a demanding and consolidating market.

An Impulse from Research: How AI Shapes Entrepreneurial Innovation
The evening opened with an impulse by Prof. Dr. Hannes Rothe on how artificial intelligence is reshaping entrepreneurial innovation processes. His talk set the stage by connecting current research to concrete questions of practice, exactly the bridge between academia and industry that the RIS After Work Exchange is designed to build.

Networking Over a Cold Stauder Beer
After the fireside chat, the evening moved into an open Get Together. Over a cold Stauder beer, participants continued the discussion in a more informal setting. This is what the format is all about: good conversations, new contacts, and an honest exchange after work, in an atmosphere that makes it easy to connect across research, industry, and student life.

About the RIS After Work Exchange
The RIS After Work Exchange is a recurring evening series at the Rhine-Ruhr Institute of Information Systems that brings research and practice together in a relaxed setting. The next edition will feature Prof. Dr. Ralf Plattfaut. Anyone who would like to take part is welcome to get in touch to be added to our mailing list for upcoming events.

On June 23, 2026, the Process Innovation and Automation Lab (PIA Lab) at the University of Duisburg-Essen opened its doors as part of the Essen Science Summer 2026. Under the title "AI Meets HR Processes: A Hands-On Look Into the Lab," around nine participants spent 2.5 hours exploring the future of human resources work in the age of artificial intelligence — practical, interactive, and free of charge.

What AI Can Do — and What It Cannot Replace

The event centered on a key question: Which tasks in HR processes can machines genuinely take over today — and which human competencies become not obsolete, but more important as a result? Speaker Jannis Nacke, together with student assistant Frederik Ernst, walked attendees step by step through a typical manual HR workflow before demonstrating live how AI tools can support, accelerate, or transform that same process. In front of the audience, the two built automations and AI workflows from scratch — making the technology tangible and immediately visible.

Program of the Evening

The afternoon was structured in three phases: After a welcome and an introduction explaining why HR processes make an ideal testing ground for AI applications, participants collectively reconstructed a typical manual HR workflow. The third segment brought everything together with a hands-on demonstration directly in the lab — a format designed to bridge theory and practice in real time.

Part of the Essen Science Summer 2026

The event was embedded in this year's Science Summer, held under the overarching theme "Future Skills — Human Competencies in the Context of Change and New Technologies." The PIA Lab used the platform to make research tangible and to foster dialogue between academia, industry, and the general public.

From 8 to 10 June 2026, the 21st International Conference on Design Science Research in Information Systems and Technology (DESRIST 2026) took place in Münster, chaired by Prof. Jan vom Brocke. Under the theme "Design for Better Futures: Beyond the Science of the Artificial", the conference brought together the international Design Science Research community to discuss how design can contribute to sustainable and livable futures.

Our team was represented with two contributions. Jannis Nacke presented the Research-in-Progress paper "Designing Process Mining to Mitigate Electronic Performance Monitoring Risks", co-authored with Prof. Dr. Ralf Plattfaut and Prof. Dr. Dr. René Riedl, which explores how Process Mining systems can be designed so that process transparency is experienced as supportive rather than as surveillance. Our external Ph.D. student Peter Alois Francois presented the Research-in-Progress paper "Designing a Socio-Technical Support System for Reuse in Low-Code Development: An Echeloned Design Science Research Study", co-authored with Marlon Kampmann, Prof. Dr. Ralf Plattfaut, and Prof. Dr. André Coners. Both papers are published in the DESRIST 2026 proceedings by Springer.

Diese Woche hat die Fakultät für Informatik zum ersten Mal den Tag der Informatik gefeiert. Mit über 150 Gästen konnten Themenstellungen rund um künstliche Intelligenz diskutiert werden. Unsere Arbeitsgruppe war vielfältig beteiligt:

• Prof. Dr. Ralf Plattfaut hat eine Keynote zum Thema "Leading AI-Augmented Teams – Thesen zur Führungskraft der Zukunft” gehalten
• Im Anschluss war Ralf Plattfaut teil des Panels zum Thema “KI im Spannungsfeld zwischen gesellschaftlicher Verantwortung und unternehmerischer Innovation”
• Parallel haben Nachwuchswissenschaftler der Arbeitsgruppe mehrere Poster zu aktuellen Forschungsthemen präsentiert

Highlight war sicherlich die Prämierung des Posters von Ali Ergün als Runner Up für das beste Poster.