upp department celebrates 20 years of research for sustainable technology

"We are looking forward to a whimsical journey through two decades of climate protection with project partners, companions, colleagues, friends of the department as well as former and current employees", Prof. Dr.-Ing. Jens Hesselbach describes the anniversary celebration with anticipation.

The focus will also be on the pitches of the start-up projects Shards, Veli, Stay Awesome, 2°-Netz and Saatgutkonfetti, which are currently supported by upp in the field of sustainability. Lord Mayor Christian Geselle has announced his attendance, as has the presidium of the University of Kassel.

On March 1, 2002, the age of energy and resource efficiency began at the University of Kassel with the appointment of the Chair of Environmentally Sound Products and Processes within the Institute of Production Technology and Logistics of the Department of Mechanical Engineering. In the call for applications, the title was still formulated somewhat unwieldily as Professorship for Rational Material Application in Design and Manufacturing. Prof. Hesselbach accepted the call to Kassel in order to teach students a holistic and global approach to production buildings, products and processes over their entire life cycle. In doing so, technological progress is not only oriented towards economic benefit, but social and environmental values are given equal consideration in the sense of sustainable development.

Today's research activities are divided into the following 5 thematic areas: Climate-, energy- and resource-efficient production, collection, evaluation and benchmarking of energy data, flexible energy supply and load management, energy concepts and energy services for commercial properties, and AAL concepts based on consumption data in the home. "Over the past 20 years, the department can look back on 28 PhDs, 200 student assistants, nearly 650 theses, 84 projects, 6 EXIST projects, 4 spin-offs, and approximately 11 million in third-party funds raised to date," reports Prof. Hesselbach.

In the future, the upp will take care of start-ups in the sustainability sector even more intensively, but this in even closer cooperation with the Science Park, the FiDT, the VDI Nordhessen, the IHK Kassel-Marburg, the Nordhessischer Investorenclub, the regional management and the city of Kassel. "A nice conclusion would be to put another 2-3 successful spin-offs on the track, as was achieved with Limón GmbH 15 years ago, which today has about 60 employees based in Kassel," says Prof. Hesselbach.