CAUSE Retreat 2026: Timmendorfer Strand
16 February 2026
CAUSE Retreat 2026: One Year In Retrospective and New Prospects Ahead
We are happy to announce the conclusion of this year’s successful academic retreat at Timmendorfer Strand. The whole research training group CAUSE came together to synchronize and review our research status, discuss, and explore current developments in the field of self-explanation. Specifically, the second cohort discovered plenty of opportunities for future collaboration and research directions. The retreat featured two keynote talks by experts in the fields of software verification and wind farm control. Prof. Dr. Christel Baier (University of Dresden) presented “Verification meets Causality”, a talk connecting the field of verification with reasoning about what influences the results. Dr. Vlaho Petrovic presented “Wind Park Control”, a talk about the physical and technical challenges in the control of wind parks and individual wind engines giving great entry points for CAUSE. In addition, the members of CAUSE organized presentations and posters about their own projects. Carrying the inspiration from the presentations and conversations, the PhD students and PIs split into groups to discuss implications and ideas on specific focus topics. These workshops sparked multiple projects and paper concepts to work on and expand on thoughts gathered during the retreat. The working rooms provided productive environments and allowed for focused team work in small groups, while the central break room invited discussion and energy recharge. Walks by the seaside in the mornings and evenings kept the mind sharp even with a full program during the day. We are looking forward to the future work branching off from this successful retreat at Timmendorfer Strand.
As a result, focused research within the next few months will consider cross-level explanations and logic foundations for self-explanation.
