A factory hall in Lusatia. A worker is working at a workbench alongside a cobot – short for collaborative robot. A screen shows the production process as it unfolds in real time. What sounds like a vision of the future has long been part of everyday life in some factories in Lusatia.

What began as a research question at the Brandenburg University of Technology Cottbus-Senftenberg (BTU) is now taking shape in Kolkwitz: At the Sportverein 1896 e.V. on Jahnstraße, the shell of a multi-purpose building stands, constructed almost entirely from dismantled concrete slabs from old GDR residential blocks. Today, a topping-out ceremony is being held to mark the occasion.

Whether in a care home, a factory floor or an office building: when every second counts in an emergency, it must be clear where a person is at any given moment. A research team at the BTU has now presented a method that significantly improves the design of such tracking systems – making them faster, more reliable and requiring considerably less hardware than before.

A BTU study shows that decentralised accommodation for refugees in Brandenburg is feasible and has been shown to offer them advantages over living in collective accommodation. Nevertheless, the state continues to house refugees predominantly in collective accommodation. This is shown by the final report on the VASiB collaborative project carried out by BTU Cottbus-Senftenberg.

In the BTU’s laboratories, an organism is growing in green culture flasks that is more commonly found in smoothies and is often referred to as a microalgae: spirulina. Whilst it is widely used as a dietary supplement, its potential as an anti-cancer agent remains largely unexplored.

Computing Centres, artificial intelligence, maritime future spaces – and right at the heart of it all, a cyanobacterium that is set to strike fear into liver tumour cells. At the invitation of the Minister-President’s Representative for Lusatia, Dr.-Ing. Klaus Freytag, in collaboration with the Lusatia Economic Region and the Cottbus Chamber of Commerce and Industry, media representatives took part in the ‘Media Tour of the Lusatia Region of Opportunity’.

On the initiative of Prof. Dr Wolfram Berger, Vice-President for Internationalisation at BTU Cottbus-Senftenberg, the EIZ and BTU have further expanded their international activities in India. The aim of the outreach mission was to establish new partnerships in research, teaching, innovation and entrepreneurship.

Understand intellectual property rights, properly file inventions, and confidently enter into partnerships: Our optimized technology transfer platform is now online. In addition to a comprehensive classification system covering everything from patents to trademarks, the portal provides access to a database of university patents

BTU researchers are developing a mathematical model to optimise the deployment of autonomous rescue drones in the Lusatian Lake District

From 7 to 9 August 2026, film buffs, fantasy enthusiasts and gamers will gather at the Elbenwald Festival in Cottbus’s Spreeauenpark. Ahead of the event, we spoke to Dirk Wiedenhaupt, one of the founders of Elbenwald, about the festival, the company and his period of study at the BTU.