From 28 to 30 October 2024, the 'Ulysseus Days' took place in Münster under the title ‘Navigating Pathways to a Sustainable Future’. The Ulysseus Days started with the official kick-off of the Münster Innovation Hub within the Ulysseus University Alliance on 28 and 29 October 2024 with the event ‘Explore and Connect: Meet the Innovation Hub of Socio-Ecological Sustainability’. On the 30th October the Research & Innovation (R&I) conference ‘Sustainable Innovations’ took place. Many current ZIN members were involved in various formats on all three days.

After the official welcome on Monday morning by Rector Johannes Wessels, Chief Scientific Officers and ZIN Board members Doris Fuchs and Tillmann Buttschardt introduced to the event with a split keynote speech, presenting challenges and approaches to solutions in the field of ‘socio-ecological sustainability’ from an ecological, natural and social science perspective. In the subsequent panel discussion, which was moderated by Daniela Pastoors, Vice-Rector and ZIN member Michael Quante first presented the University of Münster's sustainability strategy before joining Bodo Philipp, Rebecca Froese and Sigrid Kannengießer in providing insights into the associated fields of education, research, transfer and governance. This way, the Ulysseus partner universities were able to gain a comprehensive first impression of the University of Münster as a whole and of its endeavors in the field of sustainability.

On Monday afternoon, Cornelia Steinhäuser focused on the central cross-cutting element of the Innovation Hub's three fields of action- education, research and transfer - by leading a workshop on real-world laboratories and living labs. In the first part, she shed light on these two transdisciplinary approaches, before presenting examples of living lab projects from Münster in the second part. Julia Wiethüchter and Rebecca Froese presented the projects ‘SUNRISE’ and ‘LATERNE’, while Samuel Mössner contributed a concluding lecture on the critical categorization of this topic area.

In the final session on Monday, moderated by Tobias Gumbert, the question of how the Innovation Hub's research network should be organized and developed in more concrete terms was discussed. Thus, he invited Karen Siegel and European Research Services GmbH as guests: in her presentation on ‘Food, Agriculture, Natural Resources and Sustainability Transitions: interdisciplinary and international dimensions’, Karen Siegel shared exciting insights into research in an international context, while ERS, represented by Silke Krol, gave practical tips on how to deal with EU funding formats and application strategies.

On Tuesday morning, Daniela Pastoors opened the second day with a session on the interface between education and sustainability, in which she worked with the participants to identify suitable content, methods and topics. Constantina Rokos then focused on the topic of knowledge transfer and looked at various contexts for collaborations. Antonia Graf shared her expertise by moderating interactive themed tables.

These thematic impulses were followed by exploratory visits (‘Lab Visits’), including to MEET, presented by Adrienne Hammerschmidt with a subsequent guided tour, and to the ‘City Lab’, whose activities were presented by Simge Özdal Oktay. Other stops included the Botanical Garden and the university's REACH-EUREGIO Start-Up Centre. A particular focus of the lab visits was to show the European guests how sustainable topics are practiced and lived at the University of Münster using specific scientific projects and initiatives.

In the afternoon, an SDG city tour rounded off the programme: instead of an academic focus, the focus was on the city of Münster itself. The Ulysseus guests were given inspiration and ideas for sustainable projects. For example, they were able to sample Fairtrade chocolate from the Weltladen and were given historical insights into food distribution in Münster at the Kiepenkerl statue. At the same time, the Münster IH Local Steering Committee & Scientific Board Meeting took place, in which Tobias Gumbert, Daniela Pastoors, Doris Fuchs and Tillmann Buttschardt were involved.

On the third day, Ulysseus hosted its R&I conference at the Centre for Soft Nanoscience (SoN). Around 60 participants experienced an exciting and active conference, which started with a keynote speech by Michael Quante as a reflection on the moral rights of future generations. This was followed by impulse presentations that offered different perspectives on socio-ecological sustainability. Throughout the day, parallel sessions and presentations explored topics such as maritime tourism, sustainable education, recycled materials and discussed current research findings and approaches at the intersection of sustainability and technology with the stated aim of promoting and implementing innovative ideas.

These three days were very well attended with a total of around 100 participants. The Ulysseus-Münster team is delighted with the lively and active participation of so many guests from partner universities and would like to thank them in particular for all the dialogue and content-related impulses during the event.