© TUD / Frank Grätz
December 4, 2025
Stefanie Speidel and Martin Wagner receive prestigious Reinhart Koselleck funding
Fellow Stefanie Speidel, Professor of Translational Surgical Oncology, and Martin Wagner, Professor of AI-based Assistance Systems in Surgery, were awarded the prestigious Reinhart Koselleck grant by the German Research Foundation (DFG). The grant, which was made available to interdisciplinary teams for the first time, is endowed with EUR 1.2M over five years. The researchers want to use the funding to enable reliable collaboration between humans and robots in the operating room.
As part of the interdisciplinary project "Balancing the Odds by Simulating Rare Cases for Surgical Data Science" (SIMSURGE), the research team is striving to develop semi-automated methods for creating a large number of realistic surgical simulations – especially with regard to rare and critical cases – in order to advance surgical artificial intelligence (AI) and data science, as well as to train robots for surgery. By combining precise physical modeling with generative AI, the project will create data-rich environments that improve realism, diversity and scientific accuracy.
The insights gained will help to reduce bias in surgical AI, improve quality assurance and enable a safer collaboration between humans and robots in the operating room – ultimately supporting surgical training and decision-making.
About the Reinhart Koselleck Program
Reinhart Koselleck projects stand for more freedom in pursuing particularly innovative research. Researchers with a proven scientific track record are given the opportunity to carry out highly innovative and, in a positive sense, risky projects.
[Cited from TUD press release; Ensuring a reliable collaboration between humans and robots: Researchers at the CeTI Cluster of Excellence receive prestigious Reinhart Koselleck funding]
