Long term visions at the Marbach castle

The Scientific Retreat of Malte Drescher’s research group took place from September 9 to September 11, 2012 as an off-site meeting at the Marbach castle conference and training center. The castle’s Boathouse offered a fantastic change of scenery for the eleven group members during their scientific sessions.

At the current stage the group has to master the step from a junior research group to an established one. While the first generation of PhD researchers is going to leave the group soon, there are also group members at the very beginning or in the middle of their PhD research. The retreat in Marbach helped to master the challenge of knowledge transfer and enhanced the research group homogeneity. The latter is of particular importance since the group consists of differently trained people, e. g. Physicists and Chemists.

One main session of the retreat has been devoted to identifying and exploring new research directions. In intense discussions long term visions have been developed. An entire time slot had been reserved for team exercises. These challenges will enable the group to learn to react flexibly, find solutions, communicate clearly, and work for the team as a whole.