Marius Engler, a doctoral candidate at the Electrochemistry and Electroplating Group at TU Ilmenau, was presented with the FAIR4Chem Award on March 12 at the JCF Spring Symposium in Cologne, one of Europe's largest scientific conferences by and for young scientists.

Acoustic measurements carried out on the Walcker organ in St. Jacob's Church in Ilmenau marked an important milestone in a European research project dedicated to the large-scale digitization of traditional and ancient musical instruments.

Topic: Audio technology that sets global standards: From MP3 to Okeanos Home Speaker: Karlheinz Brandenburg, Brandenburg Labs, TU Ilmenau Time: Friday, March 20, 2026, 3:00 p.m. Location: TU Ilmenau, Faraday Lecture Hall, Weimarer Straße 32, entrance on Prof. Schmidt-Straße Admission: 5 euros It is rare for an invention from Germany to conquer the world.

As part of the EU project MusicSphere, the TU Ilmenau is working with eleven partners from across Europe to digitize the historic organ of Ilmenau's town church in a detailed 3D model. The acoustic measurements will enable digital twins of historic organs to be created in order to preserve them and their sound for future generations.

The Thuringian Innovation Center for Mobility at the TU Ilmenau is launching a research group that aims to make autonomous vehicles safer and road traffic more efficient. An ambitious goal: communication and radar systems based on the future 6G mobile communications standard will enable automated vehicles to detect their entire surroundings with high precision and speed - the data exchanged between them will help to prevent accidents and optimize traffic flows. The research group is being co-financed by the Free State of Thuringia with €963,700 for three years from the European Social Fund Plus.

"Smart Materials, Smarter Sensors" - Intelligent materials and sensor technology will be the focus of the 24th Thuringian Materials Day on March 19 at the TU Ilmenau. Thuringian Materials Day is one of the most important forums for experts from science, industry, and politics on innovations in materials development, testing, and application. Here, current developments in materials research are discussed and new collaborations are initiated. The program for this year's event includes keynote speeches, short scientific presentations, and a poster and industry exhibition. Participation in the event is free of charge.

The ForLab Competence Atlas was launched at the symposium "Microelectronics Research in Germany: From Fundamentals to Application" which is currently taking place in Bochum. The online platform presents the high-tech infrastructure and specific expertise in microelectronics research at 23 German universities. Other research institutions and companies can now access it and establish contacts with the respective universities and initiate corresponding projects. ForLab Competence Atlas: https://forlab-kompetenzatlas.tu-ilmenau.de/

Dr. Andreas Schwarz, a German communications scientist at the Technische Universität Ilmenau, has been invited to become a member of NASA's Task Force 2, "Decadal Astrobiology Research and Exploration Strategy (NASA-DARES)." The US space agency is developing a strategic roadmap for the next ten years to explore the origins, evolution, distribution, and future of life in the universe. The working group, in which Dr. Andreas Schwarz is involved, contributes various social science perspectives that are important for the responsible communication of complex scientific results from space research and the possible discovery of extraterrestrial life to society.