On-site campaign also at the HSZG

On March 10, 2016, the Executive Committee of the CDU parliamentary group in the Saxon State Parliament visited the Zittau/Görlitz University of Applied Sciences as part of a tour of the district.

The delegation included: Mr. Christian Piwarz, Member of the State Parliament (MdL), First Deputy Chair of the Parliamentary Group and Parliamentary Secretary; Mr. Georg-Ludwig von Breitenbuch, Member of the State Parliament (MdL), Deputy Chair; Ms. Ines Springer, Member of the State Parliament (MdL), Vice Chair, Treasurer; Dr. Stephan Meyer, Member of the State Parliament (MdL), Constituency Representative for Constituency 60 (Görlitz 4); Mr. Christian Hartmann, Member of the State Parliament (MdL), Spokesperson for Domestic Policy; Mr. Alexander Krauß, Member of the State Parliament (MdL), Spokesperson for Social Policy; as well as staff members Ms. Beate Weyh, Head of the Parliamentary Group Executive Committee Office, and Mr. Pascal Ziehm, Public Relations/Deputy Press Spokesperson for the Parliamentary Group.
The delegation was welcomed at the Zittau Power Plant Laboratory by the Rector, Prof. Friedrich Albrecht; the Chancellor, Karin Hollstein; the Vice Rector for Research, Prof. Tobias Zschunke; the Director of the Institute for Process Engineering, Process Automation, and Measurement Technology (IPM), Prof. Frank Worlitz, and Prof. Alexander Kratzsch, Department Head and Project Manager at the IPM. After a general round of introductions, Prof. Frank Worlitz briefly presented the Zittau Power Plant Laboratory and demonstrated its layout via a video. Following this, the project leaders explained their experimental setups and research projects: Prof. Zschunke discussed his research project, the Thermochemical Test Field (TCV II); Prof. Worlitz the test rig for experimental investigations of magnetic and trapping bearings under realistic conditions, and Prof. Kratzsch the large-scale test facility THERESA—Thermal Energy Storage System. The members of the state parliament were impressed by the test facilities, followed the presentations on the ongoing experiments with great interest, and engaged in discussions with the project leaders.
Afterward, the group gathered for an informal roundtable discussion in the university’s Energy Technology Cabinet and discussed topics related to higher education policy, such as the upcoming Higher Education Development Plan 2025, basic funding for research, support for research project processes at universities of applied sciences, and student enrollment trends at the university. International students were a particular point of focus. The representatives’ questions focused in particular on students from our neighboring countries, Poland and the Czech Republic. Prof. Frank Worlitz also reported on international projects such as the collaboration between Zittau University of Applied Sciences andGörlitz at the Sino-German University, within the German University Consortium for International Cooperation—through which collaboration with Mexico is currently being established in a good way—and also on the long-standing collaboration with the Technical University of Liberec.

Overall, this meeting and the exchange with the state legislators were viewed very positively by both sides.