As one of four universities of applied sciences, Karlsruhe University of Applied Sciences has been accepted into the accompanying national programme of the EU initiative with its application ‘INGENIUM’

In January, a further 21 universities and four universities of applied sciences (HAW) were accepted into the national accompanying programme for the EU initiative ‘European Universities’. With this programme, the German government supports German universities in establishing Europe-wide university networks. To this end, they will receive national funding from the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) until 2023 in addition to the funds already provided by the EU. The programme is implemented through the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD).

With its application ‘INGENIUM’, Karlsruhe University of Applied Sciences had been awarded the contract to participate in this programme. Under its leadership, ten universities from ten European countries now want to systematically strengthen their cooperation in the field of digital teaching over the next three years. Together, they will further develop their academic offer and consistently use the potential of digitisation to further improve the student-centeredness of teaching and to design flexible and accessible courses. Bottom-up and top-down strategies are combined: cross-border teaching cooperations and opportunities for individual exchange of experience are established, and (virtual) student mobility in the network is encouraged. At the same time, the activities are embedded in a cooperation framework, steered by decision-makers at the universities and accompanied by cross-university working groups. The central measure of the project, the collaborative development of cross-national teaching offers with digital components, is carried out with media-didactic and technical support by an instructional designer in the ‘INGENIUM Education Lab’. Furthermore, assistance is provided with regard to bureaucratic and legal framework conditions.

The project is funded by the BMBF over a three-year period with just under 450,000 euros. Karlsruhe University of Applied Sciences’ partners in the INGENIUM Alliance are the Munster Technological University (Ireland), Högskolan i Skövde (Sweden), Medical University Sofia (Bulgaria), Universidad de Oviedo (Spain), Università degli Studi ‘G. d’Annunzio’ (Italy), Universitatea Tehnică ‘Gheorghe Asachi’ din Iaşi (Romania), South Eastern Finland University of Applied Sciences (Finland), University of Crete (Greece), and Université de Rouen Normandie (France).