Medicine of the future: University of Erfurt team honoured in university competition

Other winners come from Berlin, Jena, Kaiserslautern, Koblenz, Munich, Regensburg, Weingarten and Wuppertal. They will all receive prize money of 10,000 euros each, which they can use to realise their project idea – from an exhibition to cookery evenings to a poetry competition – by the end of the year. In addition, the winning teams can attend training courses and events organised by "Wissenschaft im Dialog", including on research communication and public relations, social media, storytelling and event organisation.

The idea for the "HeatFuture Lab" originated from the ongoing project HEATCOM project and now offers the opportunity to further deepen scientific findings and disseminate them to the general public – in the spirit of participatory research and research communication geared towards the population as a whole, explains Dr Dominik Daube. He works as a postdoctoral researcher on the HEATCOM project at the University of Erfurt, which focuses on the question of how people in Germany behave in heat situations, which factors influence their protective behaviour and how interventions can contribute to health-promoting adaptation. Together with his colleague Sarah Pelull and student assistants, he now wants to implement the "HeatFuture Lab Thuringia" at the Institute for Planetary Health Behaviour.

"We are planning an interactive exhibition space in which visitors can simulate a hot summer in 2050 together with young researchers. Using AI-generated future images from real city photos, short AI-based heat sounds – instrumental soundscapes that reflect the mood of the scenes – and vivid representations of heat stress, visitors will be able to experience how heat can affect well-being, everyday life and health risks." Extreme conditions are not simulated in real life, but are made immersively comprehensible through visual, acoustic and narrative means. In one place in the room, heat can be experienced briefly and in a controlled manner via radiant heaters, but without posing any health risks. Dr Dominik Daube: “At the heart of all this is the question of how preventive, advisory and digital medical services of the future can support people in heat, for example through comprehensible information, orientation and low-threshold formats, e.g. telemedical consultation hours on heat days, digital warning and advisory services or heat-sensitive care structures.”