What is the goal of the NSE network?
The network brings together doctoral students in the area of sustainable urban development as well as other interested scientists, with the aim of pooling their expertise. The network offers support regarding technical and methodical questions; it promotes contacts and an informal exchange among (prospective) scientists and researchers as well as direct access to information.

Advantages of the network

• support regarding technical and
• methodical questions
• publications
• contacts
• informal exchange
• direct access to information
• Participants
  

The participants of the network come from the following areas:

• architecture
• city planning
• spatial planning
• landscape planning
• civil engineering, geology, sociology etc..

NSE colloquia
Starting 2006, NSE colloquia take place twice a year (in spring and fall). They are addressed to all postgraduate students, who work in sustainable urban development and would like to discuss methodical questions, research hypotheses and results. Participants can present their thesis topic, method, working hypotheses, and the
status of their work in short lectures, which will be followed by constructive discusssions. There will also be a workshop, where participants can discuss general topics and problems related to their theses.

The colloquia are generally followed by excursions to ecological and sustainable projects. The location for the colloquia varies. The previous meetings took place at:

• TU Berlin - Chair of Building Technology and Design
• TU Darmstadt - Energy Efficient Building Design Unit
• The Bauhaus-University Weimar - Chair - Fundamentals of ecological planning and building
• Hamburg University of Technology - Institute of Applied Building Technology

Symposium “urban transitions“
The symposium urban transitions - organized by the NSE network - took place at the University of Kassel in June 2007. The participants and referees consisted of students, postgraduate students, junior researchers and professors from Germany, Austria and Switzerland, which work in sustainable urban development. The symposium supplied views of strategies and results of relevant research activities and current practical examples in the German-speaking countries. In three thematic sessions methods to the analysis and evaluation of the environment, energy and material
flow in different need fields and infrastructure systems, new planning-theoretical concepts as well as the influence from participants and life-styles were put up for discussion.

Web page and mailing list
The NSE web page www.nse-netz.de informs about requests and goals of the network. It is to facilitate exchange, to give information about the members and offer contact addresses. Besides it is meant as forum for discussions, publications and information exchange, in particular to specific postgraduate topics on sustainable urban development. Beyond that event notes and working helps as well as information to postgraduate
financing opportunities are available.
Over the NSE mailing list the participants can communicate with one another and exchange information. Apart from meeting references also book reviews, recruitment advertising, tips for post-graduate financing opportunities, new political developments and technical questions are distributed and commentated or discussed if necessary.

Admission into the network
Participate can everyone, who feels addressed by the network with its topic. Admitted to the NSE network are postgraduate students and other persons, who introduce themselves at meetings of the network - in particular at the colloquia - or people who are commended by a member of the network.