How exactly is climate change affecting the Baltic Sea region? What are the latest developments in solids process engineering? These and other questions were discussed at the UNU Hub Meeting “Engineering to Face Climate Change“. Around 50 participants gathered in the doctoral examination room in Building B for presentations and expert discussions.
The meeting was opened by Prof. Nima Shokri, Executive Co-Director of the UNU Hub Engineering to Face Climate Change alongside Prof. Irina Smirnova. The Head of the Institute of Geo-Hydroinformatics highlighted the core idea behind the UNU Hub: “Our goal has always been to create a platform where researchers, policymakers, industry representatives, and other stakeholders can exchange ideas and learn from one another. Participants bring diverse backgrounds, expertise, and perspectives, and represent different career stages. It is precisely this diversity that drives innovation and helps us develop solutions to some of the most pressing environmental challenges of our time. Only by working together we can make a lasting difference.”
Contributions from Italy and Canada
Reflecting this spirit of diversity, the list of speakers was equally international. Among them was Prof. Alberto Guadagnini, an expert in hydrogeology and Vice Rector for Research at the Politecnico di Milano. He presented the work of his university, which was recently ranked among the top universities in Europe and the best university in Italy in the QS World University Rankings 2027. Since last year, the Politecnico di Milano and TU Hamburg have been connected through a Memorandum of Understanding.
Dr. Rohit Ramchandani travelled from Canada to attend the meeting. He serves as Innovation and Strategic Partnerships Officer at the United Nations University Institute for Water, Environment and Health (UNU-INWEH). In his presentation, Ramchandani explained how UNU-INWEH works with partners to address critical global security and development challenges at the intersection of water, environment, and health.
A much shorter journey brought Prof. Stefan Heinrich from TU Hamburg to the podium. The Head of the Institute of Solids Process Engineering and Particle Technology spoke about his research and emphasized that, ultimately, every process at his institute is part of climate-informed engineering. Sustainability was also examined from a social science perspective in the presentation by Dr. Rowan Alden Hull from the Social-Ecological Systems Institute at Leuphana University Lüneburg.
The youngest speakers of the day were brothers Jim Horeyseck (18) and Pit Horeyseck (20), both students of General Engineering Science at TU Hamburg. Despite their young age, they have already spent several years advocating for climate protection and regularly give presentations at schools. At the UNU Hub Meeting, they spoke about the warming of the Baltic Sea, drawing on observations they had made during a field research project.
The event concluded with a poster session for doctoral researchers and the presentation of the Gustav Polensky Foundation Awards. Two of the twelve submissions particularly impressed the expert jury: Inchara Kumaraswamy received the €1,000 first prize for the project “Global Assessment of Saline Lakes Dynamics“, while Davis Rakshan was awarded €500 for “AI-Enabled Acoustic Sensing for Scalable Biodiversity Monitoring under Climate Change“.
About the UNU Hub “Engineering to Face Climate Change”
The UNU Hub “Engineering to Face Climate Change“ at Hamburg University of Technology is the world's first climate-focused hub of the United Nations University (UNU). Established in 2024, it serves as a bridge between academia and the United Nations, fostering the development of sustainable engineering solutions to face climate change.
