Basic HTML-Version
BUW.
OUT
PUT Nr.
8
FOrschungsmagazin der Bergischen UniversitätWuppertal
/
Wintersemester 2012/2013
5
he world’s biggest experiment in search of the world’s
smallest particle has already claimed a place in
these pages. Now, some three years after coming on
stream, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) – a giant
almost 30 km in circumference buried a hundred or so
meters below ground at the European Organization for
Nuclear Research (CERN) facility near Geneva – has
allowed scientists a first real glimpse into as yet hidden
dimensions of the subatomic universe. The results of the
experiment are hopeful. The newly discovered particle
is evidently a candidate for the rank of the long sought-
for Higgs boson. What this means is explained in the
opening article of the present issue of UW.OUPUT. It’s
news straight from the source of the simulated Big Bang,
where UW physicists have played a significant role in the
development of the ATLAS detector, the eye of the entire
experiment.
The university’s cooperation with CERN’s LHC is an
example of UW’s leading edge research, involving the
development of new technologies and contributing to
knowledge that will change our view of the world, or at
least place it on a new foundation. Other articles in this
issue describe projects in fundamental and applied re-
search that illustrate the breadth of the university’s com-
mitment to ‘ innovation and the future’.
Will we, for example, soon be wearing ‘smart’ phones
integrated into so-called ‘ intelligent clothing’? A prere-
quisite for such a development is soft and flexible elec-
tronic components. Research into organic semiconduc-
tors, especially polymers, has a long tradition at UW, and
the development of stretchable solar cells lies at the heart
of a current project supported by the German Research
T
Foundation’s renowned Emmy Noether Program. You
can read in this issue how and why soft electronics may
soon become everyday reality.
Germany’s politicians see electromobility as a key
aspect of the country’s future. An important link in the
energy supply chain for the car of the future is the bat-
tery charging station, and from UW’s School of Electrical
Engineering comes an article describing how electric ve-
hicles can be more efficiently and comfortably powered
up. Other topics in this issue range from training crea-
tivity as a precondition for entrepreneurial innovation,
through the potential for conflict in uneven global de-
mographic development, to institutional strategies for
launching and establishing the innovative research fields
that are essential for future progress.
Finally, along with the latest news from the world of
UW research, this issue contains a thumbnail sketch of
the Jackstädt Center for Entrepreneurship and Inno-
vation Research. Here the university pursues its goal of
bonding theory and practice in an interdisciplinary re-
search institute devoted to crucial issues of business and
innovation, and to the dissemination of the results of this
research throughout society.
Enjoy your reading!
PS: For the English version visit
www.buw-output.de
{ Innovation and the future }