Dr. Jan Renz is Co-Department Head at FWU (Institut für Film und Bild in Wissenschaft und Unterricht), a position he has held since January 2024. At FWU, he applies his expertise in educational technology to advance digital learning solutions for German schools. Prior to this, he worked at Dataport for one year after spending 25 months at the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF), where he worked for digital education innovation projects.

Dr. Renz completed his doctoral degree (Dr. rer. nat.) in 2020 at the University of Potsdam, Faculty of Digital Engineering, with a dissertation focused on user-centered concepts for digital learning in education and professional environments. He earned his Diploma in Computer Science from the Technical University of Applied Sciences Berlin (TFH Berlin, now BHT) in 2003.

From 2013 to 2021, Dr. Renz worked at the Hasso Plattner Institute (HPI), where he was a Research Associate focusing on educational technology. During his tenure at HPI, he developed cloud infrastructure for German schools and led multiple innovative digital education projects. He has also been a Scientific Advisor to the WHO Academy.

Dr. Renz’s research interests include digital transformation in education, learning analytics, user-centered design, and interoperability standards for educational ecosystems.