A newly signed memorandum of understanding between Dartmouth and Germany's TU Bergakademie Freiberg formalizes a complementary partnership to tackle the energy transition from every angle.
Dartmouth and the Freiberg University of Mining and Technology (TUBAF) in Germany signed a memorandum of understanding June 26 that formalizes a research and education partnership focused on the global energy transition, sustainable raw materials, environmental systems, and the health and safety of energy-sector workers, in addition to advances in artificial intelligence and computational modeling.
The agreement builds on more than two years of faculty-level engagement between the two institutions by establishing a framework for joint research, scholarly exchange, and the collaborative pursuit of funding opportunities in the United States, Germany, and the European Union.
The partnership is spearheaded by The Arthur L. Irving Institute for Energy and Society at Dartmouth, beginning with a virtual workshop that has resulted in several visits by delegations from Dartmouth and TUBAF to each campus, as well as active research collaborations and a fund to support graduate students and postdoctoral researchers.
Most recently, members of TUBAF's leadership, including Rector Jutta Emes, visited Hanover in March to sign a letter of intent with Dartmouth Provost Santiago Schnell and meet with more than 40 Dartmouth faculty members, administrators, and researchers.
Founded only four years before Dartmouth, TUBAF is the world's oldest university of mining sciences and one of Germany's most research intensive, with more than 80 percent of its 4,000 students pursuing STEM fields. With roughly 100 faculty members attracting 72 million euros ($82.2 million) in annual research support, TUBAF ranks among Germany's top ten universities in extramural funding per professor—an exceptional ratio for an institution of its size.
"Strong research partnerships are built on complementary strengths and shared intellectual ambition. What draws Dartmouth to TUBAF is precisely that combination," Schnell says.
"When we met in Freiberg, I couldn't help noting that our two institutions are siblings separated by the big pond—founded within years of each other, shaped by very different paths, and now finding that our strengths fit together across AI, climate science, materials, and the energy transition. I look forward to seeing what our faculty and students build together," Schnell says.
"We are very pleased to have Provost Santiago Schnell and the delegation from Dartmouth visit us at Freiberg," says Emes, TUBAF's rector. "Dartmouth and TUBAF already have various research collaborations in the fields of materials science, geosciences, and mine rescue medicine. I am convinced that researchers and students at both universities, as well as society, will benefit from the closer collaboration."
The institutions identified core areas of research alignment: energy transition and raw materials; materials science and advanced manufacturing; AI, data science, and computational modeling; and energy policy and markets. Dartmouth's Thayer School of Engineering and Tuck School of Business are among the identified initial collaborators, with the expectation that collaborations will expand across Dartmouth's School of Arts and Sciences over time.
"What makes this partnership compelling is how naturally the two institutions complement one another," says Geoffrey G. Parker, faculty director for the Irving Institute, who worked to build the partnership.
"Together, we span the full energy transition value chain—from resources and materials to technology, markets, and policy," says Parker, who, while at TUBAF for the MOU signing, gave a guest lecture related to his work on AI-assisted programming and "tech debt," which is the buildup of bad AI-generated code that makes large systems harder and more expensive to maintain and fix.
Yan Li, an associate professor of engineering who visited TUBAF for the signing, is among the Dartmouth faculty planning a collaborative research project under the new partnership, with her focus being on sustainable energy materials.
"Dartmouth's AI-driven approach to designing advanced energy materials pairs perfectly with TUBAF's strengths in manufacturing, testing, and analysis," Li says. "Together, we can speed up the development of next-generation materials for energy and engineering while fostering meaningful collaborations and exchange opportunities among students, faculty, and researchers at both institutions."
Sarah Crockett, an assistant professor of emergency medicine at the Geisel School of Medicine, currently works with TUBAF through a seed grant from Irving to improve onsite medical care for energy-sector workers, for whom access is often limited by remote and austere work environments.
"By leveraging TUBAF's expertise in mining systems with Dartmouth Health's strengths in providing high-quality care in low-resource settings, we aim to more clearly define the spectrum of medical events occurring in these environments," says Crockett, who also is a physician and director of the Wilderness and Austere Medicine Fellowship at Dartmouth Health. "This way we can ensure that workers at the forefront of developing clean energy are supported by modern, data-driven approaches to workplace safety and emergency response."
Near-term priorities include establishing a joint steering group, piloting seed-funded research collaborations, and supporting exchange programs for graduate students and postdoctoral researchers. The partnership is designed to grow incrementally, with longer-term goals that include joint doctoral training programs, research grants, and participation in EU-funded research consortia.
"This relationship was built deliberately and carefully, starting with a virtual workshop that drew more than 20 faculty from both institutions and growing through sustained engagement on both sides of the Atlantic," says Irving Institute Research Director Angelika Hofmann.
"The MOU is an important milestone, but the more meaningful story is the research already happening. Formalizing this partnership opens real doors, among them European funding opportunities and exchanges of students and scholars," she says.
The TUBAF partnership reflects Dartmouth's broader strategy of building targeted international collaborations anchored in shared research ambition, and joins a growing portfolio of partnerships spanning Europe, Asia, and the Arctic.