Board meeting of the 4th Boysen-TU Dresden-Research Training Group and outlook for 2024

The 2^nd board meeting took place on Wednesday, 10^th January 2024 on the premises of the Research Training Group. After a warm welcome to the new year, the agenda and the minutes of the 1st board meeting on 17^th April 2023 were confirmed before the current topics of the day were discussed.

Particularly noteworthy is the fact that the fourth Research Training Group is now fully staffed. This is not a matter of course and underlines the attractiveness of our Research Training Group for national and international early career researchers.

A new doctoral project, the content of which Dr Gerd Lippold, State Secretary for Energy, Climate Protection, Environment and Agriculture, spontaneously commented as "highly exciting" during a visit to the Saxon State Parliament last autumn and which his ministry is prepared to support, is intended to take the Research Training Group further along the path to internationalisation and visibility. It will focus on the "hydrogen core network" and we will report on this in due course.

Another point of discussion was Prof. Veeneman's report following the 2023 autumn colloquium. His valuable feedback was already fed into the clusters last year, which discussed it first and drew project-specific conclusions from it.  An example of an overarching result is that Prof Hagen organised a workshop on survey and evaluation methods specifically for the engineering projects.

An outlook for 2024 revealed some highlights. An advisory board meeting is planned for the first quarter; the spring colloquium of the Research Training Group will take place on 8^th and 9^th April 2024 with Prof. Lund from Aalto University Helsinki as a dear guest and long-standing supporter of the Research Training Group. The doctoral student days in Altensteig are scheduled for 19^th to 21^st June 2024, and a very special highlight will be the Autumn School 2024: from 30^th September to 2^nd October 2024, it will take place under the title "H₂ype - Scientific Exploration of the Green Hydrogen Future" as a face-to-face event with up to 30 external participants, which we are already looking forward to. Preparations are in full swing!

We look forward to a successful 2024 and wish our readers the same, together with our best wishes for good health and cheerfulness!