Further milestones reached in the "HAW.lnternational" project in the summer semester

Component 2 of the project "HSWT goes international: Internationalising best practices (HAW.International)", funded by the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD), aims to develop new international study programmes and strengthen international exchange at universities of applied sciences in the interests of sustainable regional development. In cooperation with Debre Markos University in Ethiopia and Evergreen State College in the USA, new international study programmes are being developed incrementally. This year, a new lecture series and the associated, newly designed module "Sustainable Regional Development" were held for the first time.

Successful start to the international lecture series

The lecture series entitled "Sustainablity across Regions" kicked off this summer semester with 10 digital lectures. 11 lecturers from 4 countries (including 5 professors from partner universities) as well as practice partners and other international guest lecturers created an appealing programme that was characterised by a reference to the Sustainable Development Goals and thus made a contribution to achieving them. Participants listened to presentations on a wide range of topics relating to rural development in an international context, including sustainable tourism development, urban and rural land use policy, cooperation with indigenous peoples and forward-looking energy sources. International best practice examples rounded off the series of events.

Participation in the lecture series was open to students and interested parties from the partner universities, with an average of 34 international guests taking part. The lecture series was organised as a hybrid event (online via Zoom) and also partly in person at HSWT. Students from the Master's programmes Regional Management, Farm Management, Climate Change Management and the International Master of Landscape Architecture were represented.

Student presentations based on the example of the "Ted Talks"

Thanks to the cooperation between the two HSWT campuses, students at both the Triesdorf and Weihenstephan sites had the opportunity to have their participation in the lecture series recognised in conjunction with additional seminar sessions and to complete the "Sustainable Regional Development" module with a final presentation (3 ECTS). This enabled participants to improve their English language skills and broaden their knowledge of sustainable regional development with an international perspective. Inspired by the lecture series, a total of 23 international students gave their final presentations at the beginning of July in the style of an English-language Ted Talk, which were characterised by a free speech with a focus on the speaker and a personal connection to the topic of the presentation. For the presentations, the participants took up a wide variety of subject-specific topics such as "Women in African Agriculture", "Sailing in a Tourism Context" or "Vegan Nutrition" - characterised by a reference to the SDGs, analogous to the lecture series.

Visits from visiting professors

In June, Dr Sayeh Kassaw Agegnehu (DMU) and Dr Shangrila Joshi (TESC) each spent two weeks at HSWT in Triesdorf. They gave lectures in the international lecture series and helped organise seminars in the Master's degree programme in Regional Management. Other networking activities included an "Edulunch", a compact exchange format for HSWT staff with keynote speeches during lunch break, as well as visits to the State Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Forestry in Munich, the Peatland Science Centre in Freising and the Johannitag in Triesdorf. In addition, further joint cooperation with partner universities was discussed, with a view to the planned visit of HSWT project staff to Evergreen College in the USA in September.

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