Archive: News of Technical University of Darmstadt

Additional EU-funding for research and innovation

A year after its start, UNITE! is awarded an additional 2 million Euro funding from the EU – under the Horizon 2020 “Science with and for Society” call – in order to boost the Research and Innovation dimension of the European Universities. Politecnico di Torino coordinates the new UNITE! project “Horizon 2020”.

Physicist receives the Failla Award of the Radiation Research Society

Marco Durante, professor at the TU Darmstadt and head of the GSI Biophysics Research Department, has been awarded the prestigious Failla Award 2020 by the Radiation Research Society (RRS).

Proof of Concept: Professor Peters receives 150.000 euros from European Research Council

Professor Jan Peters has been awarded a “Proof of Concept” grant of 150,000 euros by the European Research Council (ERC). He receives the award for his project “AssemblySkills”. The aim of the project is to give robots the ability to learn autonomously with the help of artificial intelligence.´

Publication in “Reviews of Modern Physics”

Among the fundamental forces of nature, the so-called “strong interaction” plays a crucial role for the existence of matter in the universe. Just how exactly this force, fundamentally described by the theory of quantum chromodynamics as the interaction between quarks and gluons -- elementary particles that cannot be observed in isolation -- brings about the nuclear force that binds protons and neutrons to atomic nuclei is still a matter of active research. Researchers around Professor Hans-Werner Hammer at the Institute of Nuclear Physics have published an article on this topic in the renowned scientific journal Reviews of Modern Physics.

A report from a teaching perspective

Switching over to the digital semester may have been comparatively easy for the Digital Design Group as many of the course units have already been taught using computers for quite a long time. Nevertheless, there was still much to learn about cloud-based applications and the limits of digital modelling. Professor Oliver Tessmann provides some insights into the digital semester in the Department of Architecture.

Researchers at TU Darmstadt develop device to detect unauthorized audio streaming

Researchers at TU Darmstadt have teamed up with partners from the US and France to develop a device that can detect when smart home devices stream audio recordings to the Iinternet without the user’s consent.

A remedy for stress and the fear of failure

The Centre for Educational Development and Technology (HDA) at TU Darmstadt not only wants to provide teachers and students with didactic tools but also with mental support – something that is not only important during the corona crisis. The new training course “Mentally strong in studies and teaching” has been online since June. It was developed by the teacher and mental coach Diana Seyfarth. The project is based on the methods of positive psychology and provides strategies to combat exam stress, anxiety blockages and other feelings of stress. The new course aims to promote the well-being of members of TU Darmstadt.

Continental and TU Darmstadt continue PRORETA research cooperation

Technology company Continental is continuing the series of its PRORETA research projects, together with TU Darmstadt, the University of Bremen and TU Iaşi (Romania). PRORETA 5 is dedicated to one of the most challenging tasks for automated driving: recognizing complex traffic situations in inner cities and how algorithms from sensor data can deduce the correct driving decisions in these situations. By the end of 2022, algorithms based on artificial intelligence (AI) should be developed and tested for the entire chain of effects of automated driving.

Inter-university studying at the Rhine-Main Universities

The Rhine-Main Universities (RMU) will offer a new opportunity of inter-university studying for their more than 100,000 students starting in the coming winter semester: The RMU Study Program will allow students from Frankfurt, Darmstadt, and Mainz to enroll simultaneously at all three universities.

President Tanja Brühl reflects positively on the presidency

TU Darmstadt’s two-year Presidency of the CLUSTER network (Consortium Linking Universities of Science and Technology for Education and Research) ends on 30 June 2020. INP Grenoble will take over the CLUSTER Presidency from 1 July.

Interview with Prof. Michèle Knodt

How can policymakers better coordinate the energy system transformation and get citizens more effectively involved? An analysis and recommendation by Michèle Knodt,w Professor of Political Science at TU Darmstadt.

International researcher team confirms TU findings on a new kind of radioactivity

Five years ago a team of the Institute for Nuclear Physcis of TU Darmstadt discovered the new, comparably rarely-occurring kind of radioactivity, the „competitive double-gamma decay“, which in 1937 had been predicted in theory by the Nobel Prize winner Maria Goeppert-Mayer. The findings which had been published in „Nature“ have now been confirmed and measured more precisely by an international team of researchers at the European Extreme Light Infrastructure-Nuclear Physics near Bucharest, Romania. The results are released in „Nature Communications“. One of the authors is the TU professor and at the time „joint-discoverer“, Norbert Pietralla.

Thin films in the fight against corona

Researchers in materials science, led by Professor Wolfgang Ensinger, are developing plastic membranes with nanopores. Now they are experimenting to establish whether the thin films are suitable as air filters in the fight against coronaviruses.

Students from three UNITE! Partners are designing a bioreactor for space missions in the INSPIRED project

The INSPIRED (International Project Week for Interdisciplinary Research-Oriented Digital Learning) project is being held entirely in digital form this year due to the coronavirus pandemic. Students from Portugal, Italy and Germany are carrying out research and learning together in interdisciplinary groups for three weeks. Their task: to design a sustainable and efficient bioreactor that can generate nutrients and therapeutics under the extreme conditions found in space. The project has been held under the umbrella of the European University UNITE! since 2020. INSPIRED is a good example of what UNITE! stands for: completely new forms of cross-border teaching and student exchange.

Research at the Locomotion Laboratory

Human movement when stumbling is manifold – and remarkably misunderstood. TU motion scientist have come to a well-founded conclusion that could even help robots to maintain balance.