Main Areas of Research of the Boysen-TU Dresden-Research Training Group
"We live in an era where most policy debates relevant to science and emerging technologies are not simply technical issues. Rather, they are collectively decided at the intersection of politics, values, and expert knowledge" (Nisbet & Scheufele 2009, 1776).
In democracies, technical solutions have less chance of being realized without acceptance in society. Conversely, political guidelines and the expectations of the population have no chance of being realized without corresponding technical solutions being found. Both areas are dependent on each other if technical concepts are to be successfully implemented. In science, this requires close interdisciplinary cooperation. The Boysen-TU Dresden Research Training Group therefore brings together research projects in which technical and natural science subjects work together with social and political science subjects. The aim is to produce scientific work that integrates both perspectives.
The energy transition in Germany towards sustainable, renewable energy supply and use has resulted in a restructuring of the entire energy industry. However, the associated infrastructure projects are sometimes met with little acceptance among the population. At the same time, the politically desired goals can hardly be achieved with the current state of technology. The first two Research Training Groups therefore focused on the interdependence between technical feasibility and social acceptance of sustainable energy systems and their effects.
The third Research Training Group added a further core research area. Since 2019, interdisciplinary collaboration has focused on the complex field of tension between mobility, society and the environment. Firstly, new materials were developed for both catalytic converters and fuel systems and their environmentally friendly production. Secondly, new mobility technologies were evaluated in terms of their impact on health and the associated economic costs. Thirdly, various mobility scenarios were analyzed. To this end, new methods for evaluating the electrical energy supply were developed and the media coverage and the interacting public opinion on mobility scenarios were examined. Fourthly, the impact of the mobility transformation on production and distribution logistics under the conditions of the Internet of Things was examined, including issues of trust and communication.
"Hydrogen" - this has been the topic of the fourth Boysen TUD Research Training Group at TU Dresden since 2023. Hydrogen-based systems have been an integral part of TUD's research strategy for years. Within basic research, unique selling points lie in particular in the research and further development of electrolysis processes, the development of biotechnological processes (in cooperation with the UFZ Leipzig), the development of sensors and the storage of hydrogen with innovative functionalized bio-inspired materials.
materials. In application-oriented research, TU Dresden is particularly involved in the development of hydrogen-based energy storage, mobility and drive systems. Drive and storage systems, e.g. for aviation, rail and commercial vehicles as well as for work and agricultural machinery, are particularly noteworthy.
However, hydrogen as a secondary energy carrier does not per se ensure low-greenhouse gas or even low-loss energy cycles. The highly reactive substance also places high demands on safe processing. The need for research is therefore high and acute. The 4th Boysen-TU Dresden Research Training Group will make a decisive contribution to satisfying this need. It is structured in four clusters, which integrate 16 doctoral projects and corresponding scientists and specialist disciplines from the fields of natural, technical, social and medical sciences. The clusters each deal with a sub-task within the overall project of making the hydrogen economy a strategic element of a future GreenGas Deal.
Detailed information on the clusters and the individual sub-projects can be found here.