The Institute for Machine Tools and Factory Management (IWF) at the TU Berlin is looking eastwards. Since the "Pilot Project South Korea" was launched by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF), the Germans have intensified their cooperation with their Asian partners on environmentally-friendly production methods.

Stronger in alliances

Consideration here focuses on material circulation technologies for recycling resources and for a resource-orientated production. The contacts with the Asian peninsula simultaneously expanded the opportunities available to the whole Network for Innovative Closed Loop Recycling Technologies (NiK), of which the TU Berlin is a member. In the endeavours to make the network and Germany's research competence more well-known in Korea, the TU Berlin was strongly supported by the German Federal Environment Agency. Together, they represented the NiK in Seoul at the International Exhibition on Environmental Technology ENVEX 2007.

The TU Berlin had created a group of experts made up of scientists from Germany and Korea as a starting point for further cooperation and collaboration. They also managed to extend and intensify the many contacts they had made during the first workshop at the Pusan National University (PNU). This is where it became clear that both sides wished to establish in-service training programmes, student and scientist exchange, a joint research lab, plus a German-Korean double degree. At a two-part workshop on "Global Product Development", scientists from both countries developed concepts for recyclable products together. What had been conceived at the first meeting in Seoul could already be seen at the second meeting in the form of prototypes – including a tin recycling tool.

Researching together, Studying together

The building of a much desired joint research lab by the TU Berlin and the PNU also began. Furthermore, an agreement was reached with the Korean University of Science and Technology KAIST for the winter semester 2008/2009, including the exchange of scientists and an agreement on a double degree programme in engineering. The international "Global Conference on Sustainable Product Development and Life Cycle Engineering" organised by the Pusan National University in autumn 2008 marked a further highlight.