If the Corona pandemic was any good, it was for exposing the urgent need for a permanent exchange between science, business, and politics. Particularly in the area of climate policy and energy transition, it is beyond dispute that a concerted interaction between research and practical implementation in business and politics is necessary to tackle the huge tasks ahead. The aim of the panel is to determine the positions in this constellation, to ask for the reasons for the difficult exchange, and finally, to determine in what way the dialogue can be promoted and made more transparent. | Peter Lamp is head of the battery cell technology research department at BMW AG, Munich. | Jennifer Rupp is Professor of Electrochemical Materials at MIT as well as at TUM. | Martin Stümpfig is a member of the Bündnis 90/Die Grünen parliamentary group in the Bavarian State Parliament.

The question of efficient and sustainable energy storage is more virulent than ever before. Environmentally conscious economic and climate policy relies on this new research into energy storage. It is precisely these research questions that are being advanced at the Excellence Cluster e-conversion supported by LMU and TUM. The lecture series aims to present the potential of current energy research to a wider public audience and to discuss its political relevance. | Hubert A. Gasteiger is Professor of Technical Electrochemistry at the Technical University of Munich. | Carlos Moreno is the inventor of the 15-minute city and Professor of Entrepreneurship, Territory and Innovation at the Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne. | Arvind Gangoli Rao is Professor at the Faculty of Aerospace Engineering at TU Delft. | Irene Feige is head of the Institute for Mobility Research, a research facility of the BMW Group, in Munich.

The question of efficient and sustainable energy storage is more virulent than ever before. Environmentally conscious economic and climate policy relies on this new research into energy storage. It is precisely these research questions that are being advanced at the Excellence Cluster e-conversion supported by LMU and TUM. The lecture series aims to present the potential of current energy research to a wider public audience and to discuss its political relevance. | Johannes Lercher is Professor for Technical Chemistry at TU Munich. | Friederike Rohde is a research assistant at the Institute for Ecological Economy Research (IÖW) and part of the junior research group "Digitalization and Sustainability" at TU Berlin.

The question of efficient and sustainable energy storage is more virulent than ever before. Environmentally conscious economic and climate policy relies on this new research into energy storage. It is precisely these research questions that are being advanced at the Excellence Cluster e-conversion supported by LMU and TUM. The lecture series aims to present the potential of current energy research to a wider public audience and to discuss its political relevance. | Walter Leitner is Director of the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Energy Conversion and holds the Chair of Technical Chemistry and Petrochemistry at RWTH Aachen University. He is the spokesperson for the BMBF-funded Kopernikus project "P2X: Research, Validation and Implementation of "Power-to-X" Concepts".

The question of efficient and sustainable energy storage is more virulent than ever before. Environmentally conscious economic and climate policy relies on this new research into energy storage. It is precisely these research questions that are being advanced at the Excellence Cluster e-conversion supported by LMU and TUM. The lecture series aims to present the potential of current energy research to a wider public audience and to discuss its political relevance. This is not only the summer term 2021 lecture series' kick-off but also introduces the new CAS Research Focus Energy. | Johan Rockström is Director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) and Professor for Earth System Science at the University of Potsdam. | Jeanne Rubner heads the "Current Knowledge and Education" editorial team of the public-service radio and television broadcaster Bavarian Broadcasting (BR).