On the new “We Are Connected” series, two professors share a passion for tiny houses and explain how energy technology is the connecting link in their collaboration: Christof Büskens, professor of optimization and optimal control at the Center for Industrial Mathematics at the University of Bremen, and Sebastian Lehnhoff, professor of energy informatics at the University of Oldenburg and chairman of the board of the affiliated OFFIS institute.

About the Northwest Alliance

The Northwest Alliance connects the universities of Bremen and Oldenburg – two research-intensive, reform-oriented institutions that have long cooperated in research, teaching, and knowledge transfer. Together, with approximately 580 professorships, 6,400 staff members, 2,700 doctoral candidates, and 34,000 students, they form the heart of a high-performing academic region in northwestern Germany.

The alliance's goal is to combine excellent research with social responsibility and develop innovative solutions to regional and global challenges – in collaboration with numerous academic and non-academic institutions. The HWK – Institute for Advanced Study, which has served as a link between the universities for more than 25 years, and the University of Groningen (Netherlands), with which both universities have been cooperating for decades, also play a central role in this effort.

The universities of Bremen and Oldenburg are currently applying as the Northwest Alliance University Excellence Consortium under the German federal and state governments' Excellence Strategy.