For the first time, the SE²A annual Conference, which took place from 17 to 19 September 2025, welcomed nearly 150 researchers in a special setting at Delft University of Technology —our close collaboration partner and home to Europe’s largest aerospace faculty. Under the headline “Future Cooperations”, the conference tackled one of today’s biggest challenges: how to make air travel more sustainable. Over two and a half intensive days, participants from diverse disciplines exchanged ideas, showcased the latest results, that promise to reduce aviation’s environmental impact while keeping the world more linked than ever.
For some SE²A principal investigators and doctoral researchers, this was their first face-to-face encounter with Delft colleagues whose expertise complements or extends their own, for others, it was a possibility to get together again and intensify the collaboration up to this point. In fact, almost half of our session chairs and poster presenters came from Delft research groups outside the SE²A network, providing fresh perspectives and laying the foundation for collaborative projects that contribute to a bigger picture neither institution could have launched alone.
Conference Highlights
Building further on the close partnership renewed in April 2025, the conference kicked off with Prof. Jens Friedrichs (Spokesperson of the Cluster) and Prof. Peter Hecker (Vice President for Research at TU Braunschweig) alongside Prof. Henri Werij (Dean of the Faculty of Aerospace Engineering at TU Delft) highlighting the value of joint research.
Their collective message to scientists was clear: don’t work only in your single project perspective – what you share comes back to you many times.
Highlight Speeches
Professional Exchange & Lab Tours
In six poster sessions with more than 75 poster contributions the researchers showcased their findings. The posters equally contributed by TU Braunschweig and TU Delft teams sparked in-depth technical discussions. The discussion was certainly also encouraged by the short presentations given by the session leads, who provided an overview of the research areas at their respective universities.
Our participants could choose one from five guided tours of TU Delft’s cutting-edge facilities:
These tours offered not only insights into the technologies driving tomorrow’s aviation solutions, but also plenty of opportunities for informal networking with researchers conducting experiments in the facilities.
Closing
In an interactive panel discussion about future collaboration, Prof. Peter Hecker, Dean Prof. Henri Werij, and Prof. Jens Friedrichs outlined a forward-looking vision. Looking ahead, gathering so many researchers to visit an international partner and truly embody our shared European research values is a remarkable achievement—and we couldn’t be more delighted by its success.
As we leave the beautiful city of Delft with an overwhelmingly positive feedback, we carry with us fresh ideas, contacts, and the commitment for new research endeavours together.
Our heartfelt thanks go to the Faculty of Aerospace Engineering at TU Delft, Dean Henri Werij and his colleagues for bringing the joint-conference vision to life, and especially to Dr. Thomas Sinnige for organizing the lab tours.
Technische Universität Braunschweig
Cluster of Excellence SE²A –
Sustainable and Energy-Efficient Aviation
Hermann-Blenk-Str. 42
38108 Braunschweig
se2a(at)tu-braunschweig.de
+49 531 391 66661