The "MathWorks Foundation in Science and Engineering" is funded by The MathWorks in order to promote the systems sciences and scientific computing at the University of Stuttgart.

The MathWorks is a leading company for technical computing software. Its products, such as MATLAB and SIMULINK, are used extensively in research establishments and industry.

The MathWorks has started to support scientific assistants (PhD student positions) at the IST through a very generous donation. The aim is to fund students with strong interests and skills in solving mathematical problems in the area of systems theory and control engineering. Every application for a PhD position at our institute is automatically taken into consideration for this studentship.

The foundation started with an official founding ceremony on November 7, 2005. The importance of this event was underlined by the presence of Jeanne O'Keefe (left), Senior Vice President of The MathWorks, Prof. Dr. Dieter Fritsch (right), President of the University of Stuttgart, Heike Lindenschmid, Vice Chancellor of the University Stuttgart, and Wolfgang Fröhlich, Permanent Secretary for the Ministry of Science, Research and Art in Baden-Württemberg. An article about the official founding ceremony (in German) appeared in the Stuttgarter Zeitung.

The first scholar of the MathWorks Foundation was Ulrich Münz whose research work deals with networked cooperating systems. He was MathWorks scholar from November 2005 until March 2010.

Since April 2010, Daniella Schittler is the second MathWorks scholar at the IST. Her research is in the field of systems biology. She works on model-based analysis of stem cell differentiation.