Ernst Hartmann  obtained his doctorate as Dr. rer. nat. at the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering at RWTH Aachen University in 1995. In the 1990's, he worked at the Hochschuldidaktisches Zentrum/Lehrstuhl Informatik im Maschinenbau (University Teaching Centre/Chair of Information Technology in Mechanical Engineering) at RWTH Aachen. In this context, he engaged in projects on academic reform and took part in the development of new forms of academic teaching/learning. Furthermore, he carried out research on the design of man-machine systems, and issues of industrial work organisation. In the mid-1990's, Ernst Hartmann was an internal consultant for organisation and process development at John Deere Werke Mannheim. In 2002, he qualified as lecturer (habilitation) in psychology and received the "venia legendi" for Work and Organisational Psychology; since then he has been a private lecturer for work systems and process design at RWTH Aachen. From 2001 to 2004, he was responsiblefor the scientific coordination of the BMBF programme "Lernkultur Kompetenzentwicklung" (competence development and learning cultures) at the Arbeitsgemeinschaft Betriebliche Weiterbildungsforschung (ABWF e.V.) (Association for Research in Continuing Education).

From 2004 to 2016, Ernst Hartmann was head of the Socio-economic Department at VDI/VDE-IT in Berlin; since 2016 he is head of the Education, Science, and Humanities Department. Since 2007 also functions as one of the directors of iit. Since 2020, he is Adjunct Professor at the Institute for Innovation Economy, Chinese Culture University, Taipei/Taiwan.