Successful Retreat on Research at the GIK in Landau (Pfalz)

The members of the Geodetic Institute (GIK) discussed the vision, strategies, and visibility of their research on October 22nd and 23rd, 2026, in Landau (Pfalz). After a welcome by the spokesperson of the institute´s board, Martin Breunig, the two-day retreat was excellently moderated by Franziska Nickolaus (KIT Human Resources Development and Vocational Training – KIT-PEBA). Following inspiring talks on research as a vocation (Martin Breunig) and on research and the research landscape at KIT (Hansjörg Kutterer), current research focuses at the three chairs were presented by Martin Breunig (Geoinformatics), Corinna Harmening (Geodetic Sensor Systems), and Hansjörg Kutterer (Geodetic Earth System Science). Furthermore, there were frequent references to research-related teaching in the B.Sc. and M.Sc. programs in the study unit “Geodesy and Geoinformatics”. In the lightning pitches on “Surface displacement monitoring with InSAR and GNSS” (Markus Even), “Starlink mega-constellation as a sensor for climate change quantification” (Thomas Grombein), “Towards Spatio-Temporal DEM AI Cube” (Ruiqi Liu), “From Measurements to Understanding: Monitoring of Aging Infrastructure” (Jakob Schmidt), “Ultrametic Geo-Data Analysis” (Patrick Bradley), and “Mobile Laser Scanning Towards Digital Twin” (Jiangyuan Song), the diversity, interdisciplinarity, and potential for future collaborative projects became clear. Concrete measures for the future workflow on the path to coordinated research projects were discussed. The methods contributed by Franziska Nickolaus, such as the Impact-Effort Matrix and the SWOT analysis, were extremely helpful in this process. The same goes for the online presentation by Frank Bode (KIT-FOR) on “Funding opportunities in Germany – special emphasis on DFG”, as an overview for the younger members of GIK. Last but not least, Paul Kuper's presentation on KITopen and the publication metrics used at KIT should have a lasting impact on the GIK members. The retreat concluded on the second day with a summary and a call for improved visibility of research achievements at GIK. Thanks go to all participants and to the staff of the Butenschoen-Haus and the GIK secretariats for successfully organizing the retreat.