Start-ups and research groups from areas that are highly relevant to both TU Darmstadt and its strategic partner Merck presented themselves in the Transition Centre. Research groups from the etit department were represented by etit professors Heinz Koeppl and Tran Quoc Khanh.

The Lab of Adaptive Lighting Systems and Visual Processing (Prof Khanh) was on site with an impressive demonstrator for simulating plant lighting. The two scientists Jens Balasus and Felix Wirth presented their research from the DFG and ZIM projects Optical structure modelling of plants for testing optical sensor technology in their near field and Plant-Centric-Lighting (PCL) Development of a system that can be adapted to biological processes for energy-efficient and growth-effective plant lighting.

etit Professor Heinz Koeppl presented the Centre for Synthetic Biology as a speaker. Managing Director Dr Melanie Mikosch-Wersching and staff from the Self-Organising Systems Lab were also on site with various exhibits.

The expert audience, consisting of Hesse's new Minister of Economics and Deputy Prime Minister Kaweh Mansoori, Tanja Brühl, President of the Technical University of Darmstadt, Kai Beckmann, Member of the Executive Board of the Merck Group and CEO of Merck Electronics and the two ryon Managing Directors Jörg von Hagen and Steffen Bruckner as well as other representatives from politics, industry, science and start-ups, engaged in an interesting exchange about future ecological challenges and their solutions.

The opening of the Transition Centre marks an important milestone in the field of green technologies and sustainable innovations in Hesse. In her welcoming address, TU President Tanja Brühl emphasised on behalf of the two universities involved as shareholders, Darmstadt and Frankfurt, that ryon strengthens a powerful and sustainable ecosystem in the Rhine-Main region that brings start-ups and scale-ups together with partners from industry in a fruitful exchange of learning from and with each other.