12
Jan
2026
International cooperation opens up valuable opportunities for scientists in Lower Saxony. That is why the Ministry of Science and the Volkswagen Foundation are funding ten Lower Saxon-Scottish research collaborations. From energy supply and medicine to space travel: a selection of the approved projects demonstrates their wide range of subjects.
Dr Kristin Metzdorf from the Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research and Professor Dr Lars Dölken from Hannover Medical School, together with researchers from the University of Glasgow, are focusing on the human tonsils. These play a central role in the immune response to infections. Nevertheless, little is known about how immunological memory in the tonsils differs between individuals or how it is altered by repeated infections.
The experiments within the project aim to help understand why some people are more resistant to infections than others. Healthy human tissue that is normally discarded after tonsil surgery is used for this purpose. From this material, the scientists obtain so-called organoids, cell structures with the properties of tonsils. They can assign these to their original owners and thus investigate immune responses depending on age, gender, origin and vaccination status. In the long term, the findings could contribute to the development of better vaccines and individual protection strategies.
Battery Research: An Alternative to Rare Earths?
Can titanium dioxide (TiO₂), the white compound known from sunscreen and wall paint, serve as a battery material? Researchers at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow and the TU Braunschweig are investigating this. The scientists led by Professor Dr Daniel Schröder (TU BS) are using their approaches from hydrogen research to advance battery technologies in their project BRIDGE: Battery Research Innovation for Durable Green Energy: Tailored Functional Materials for Polymer Solid-State Batteries. In combination with sulphur, batteries with non-flammable electrolytes and flexible designs could be created – for example, for energy storage in communities, off-grid charging stations or small electric aircraft.
Does the Moon Have a Waste Problem?
Scientists at the Aerospace Centre of Excellence at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow and around Dr Carsten Wiedemann at the TU Braunschweig are focusing on the moon in their project Moonlight – Analysis of the Cis-lunar Dynamics of Space Objects. More and more satellites are travelling in orbits around the moon or between it and the Earth. This could become a space debris problem, as is already the case in near-Earth orbits. In order to assess the potential danger of such a scenario and, if necessary, prevent it at an early stage, the project will investigate, among other things, how many objects are travelling near the Moon and how high the probability of collisions is.
Cross-border Physics
Physicists led by Professor Dr Ilja Gerhardt at Leibniz University Hannover and the University of Glasgow are conducting cross-border research in various dimensions. While many modern technical achievements such as LEDs and solar cells are based on solid-state physics, atomic physics is clearly superior to gases in other areas of research. In their project Enhancing Atomic Spectroscopy With Optical Angular Momentum, the researchers are striving to combine the best of both worlds. Their aim is to advance quantum technology: they hope to find a way to build smaller, faster and more accurate sensors and develop compact atomic clocks. The working group is thus addressing both basic and applied research.
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The growing number of satellites in orbit around the moon or between it and Earth could become a problem.
The following projects were also approved:
- Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research (Dr Julia Rebecca Port)/ TU Braunschweig (Professor Dr Melanie Brinkmann) – University of Glasgow: Mapping Viral Replication Sites in the Respiratory Tract to Predict Disease Severity and Transmission (ViReST)
- Medical School Hannover (Dr Thomas Henning) – University of Glasgow: Investigating the Role of the HSV-1 Deubiquitinase and its Binding Partner DTX3L in Shaping the Infected-cell Ubiquitome
- Medical School Hannover (Professor Dr Peter Claus) – University of Edinburgh: The Neurodevelopmental Disease Spinal Muscular Atrophy: Functional and Molecular Alterations in Brain (SMANEURODEV)
- OFFIS (Professor Dr Sebastian Lehnhoff) – University of Strathclyde: Empowering Resilient Net-Zero Grid: A Multi-Agent Approach for Wide-Area System Integrity Protection (RANGeR)
- TU Braunschweig (Dr Jan Göing) – University of Strathclyde: A Framework to Predict Sensitivities of Transient Response for Robust Integrated Design of Electrical Propulsion Power Trains (STRIDE)
- University of Göttingen (Dr Matthias Berlandi) – University of Glasgow: Medieval Historicist – Hanoverian Modernist: The Making of National Memory in Sir Walter Scott’s Works and Unpublished Letters
Lower Saxony – Scotland Innovation and Research Scheme
Each project will receive up to 100,000 euros in funding over the next two years. Within the projects, the project partners from Lower Saxony and Scotland are working on further third-party funding applications, for example at federal and European level, in order to consolidate the cooperation in the long term. A total of 28 projects were submitted by researchers. The deadline for the next round of applications for the ‘Lower Saxony – Scotland Innovation and Research Scheme: Excellence Track’ is 30 April 2026.
The call for proposals is part of the scientific cooperation between Lower Saxony and Scotland, which is being promoted by the Lower Saxony Ministry of Science and Culture (MWK), the Volkswagen Foundation and the Royal Society of Edinburgh (RSE). It is an outstanding example of how Germany and the United Kingdom remain scientifically connected even after Brexit. This was particularly evident in the Kensington Agreement, which was signed by the German Chancellor and the British Prime Minister in London on 17 July 2025. As part of this friendship agreement, the funding programme of the MWK, Volkswagen Foundation and RSE was highlighted as a regional flagship project.
Stewart Attwood Photography
Professor Anne Anderson (Vice President of the RSE) and State Secretary Professor Joachim Schachtner (MWK) signed a memorandum of understanding for closer scientific cooperation in Edinburgh in February 2025.
Lüneburg as an Organisational Hub
In Lower Saxony, the European Centre for Advanced Studies (ECAS) at Leuphana University Lüneburg plays a central organisational role: at the end of 2025, it was developed into the central hub for scientific cooperation between Lower Saxony and Scotland. The aim is to strengthen the transregional scientific area in the long term and to promote sustainable cooperation between higher education institutions in both regions.
With the ‘Lower Saxony – Scotland Joint Forum’, the ECAS organises, among other things, the core of bilateral cooperation. Since 2020, the two-day networking event has offered university members from both regions a platform for exchange, project development and new partnerships.
