Ceremonial Kick-off for CIDS General Assembly

Since the Center for Interdisciplinary Digital Sciences was founded in 2021 as a Central Academic Unit (CAU), the successes achieved so far have been celebrated together at the first general assembly. Professor Dr. Lars Bernard, CIDO of TU Dresden, opened the event with a welcoming address and gave the word to Professor Dr. Wolfgang E. Nagel, director of the CIDS.

CIDS is structured as a competence center with various departments and a central section that brings together supporting institutions. Since its foundation, the previously independent CAUs ZIH (Center for Information Services and High Performance Computing) and CODIP (Center for Open Digital Innovation and Participation) as well as the newly founded Department Speculative Transformation have been united under the umbrella of CIDS. The central section of the CIDS will be strengthened by the Support Center Digitalization, which will start operating on 01.01.2024. Wolfgang E. Nagel summarized the latest developments in his report and also gave an outlook on the next planned steps: Further departments are to be founded in 2024, including the Department ScaDS.AI. ScaDS.AI Dresden/Leipzig is one of the five national AI competence centers and a joint institution of TU Dresden and Leipzig University. With the successful continuation of the funding, the Dresden site of the competence center will be structurally anchored as a CIDS department in the future.

Researchers from the various departments presented their fields of research as part of a science slam. Professor Dr. Dirk Brockmann, founding director of SynoSys (Synergy of Systems), also presented the concept of SynoSys, which is currently being prepared for foundation as a CIDS departments. SynoSys will take a transdisciplinary approach to researching complex phenomena at the interfaces between biomedicine, social sciences and life sciences.

Professor Dr. Jens Krzywinski, Director of the Department of Speculative Transformation and Professor Dr. Thomas Köhler, Director of the Department CODIP - Center for Open Digital Innovation and Participation, together with Professor Dr. Wolfgang E. Nagel and Dr. Lydia Behring, Coordinator of CIDS, were available to answer questions from employees in a plenary discussion. There was also a lively exchange between the attendees in the poster session, in which various fields of CIDS research were presented across 40 posters.

Professor Dr. Andreas Pinkwart was also present and introduced the newly founded TUD|Excellence Center for Innovation, Transfer and Entrepreneurship (TUD|excite), which he heads as director. With the varied program and the active networking of the participants, the general meeting was a worthy highlight at the end of the year.

© Felix Schmitt

The establishment of the Center for Interdisciplinary Sciences and the founding of the Department Synergy of Systems are projects within the framework of the excellence measure "Digitalization as a driver of innovation" and are supported by excellence funds.