Intercultural experiences and international exchange deepened through "Across Seasonal Schools" at Chemnitz University of Technology
A series of events funded by the DAAD and BMBF brought together over 100 young people from all ten Across partner institutions in Chemnitz, promoting international research exchange and demonstrating the partnership in practice
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Lego served as an "icebreaker" at the summer school on the topic of "Humans & Technology" by Prof. Dr. Lewis Chuang from the TUC, among others, in order to get into conversation with each other and on the main topic. Photo: Across Alliance
From the end of July to the end of October 2023, four international "Across Seasonal Schools" took place at Chemnitz University of Technology (TUC) as part of the active partnership of the Across Alliance. In addition to the lectures, the programme offered a variety of activities for informal exchange and intercultural experiences - including museum visits, excursions, city tours, cinema visits and joint dinners. The programme was funded by the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) and the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF).
Thanks to the awarding of residency and mobility scholarships, a total of 105 students from ten Across partner institutions in nine European countries were able to take advantage of the opportunity to work with international colleagues and learn from each other. 34 international researchers as well as lecturers and speakers delved deeper into various focal points as part of the Seasonal Schools at the TUC.
"It is wonderful to see how successfully the Across Seasonal Schools have developed in recent years. We have attracted more students and teachers to participate in 2023 than ever before. That shows the great interest and the active partnership," says Benny Liebold, Managing Director of the International Office at TUC.
On average, students from five Across partner institutions participated in each Summer School. In addition, representatives from the fields of engineering, the humanities and social sciences attended each Summer School. This illustrates the diversity of disciplines and research approaches that Across represents and which is an important pillar in the development of a cooperative knowledge and transfer network together with the partner institutions.
Bright potential and prospects for border regions: Workshops addressed a wide range of topics from computer-aided linguistics to cultural intelligence, humans & technology and renewable energies
The five-day summer school on "Bridging gaps: Formal, computational and experimental approaches in linguistics", organised by Across partners from the universities of Nova Gorica (Slovenia), Udine (Italy) and Craiova (Romania), began on 31 July 2023. Students and lecturers approached contemporary linguistics from different perspectives.
The summer school "Cultural Intelligence, creativity and transnational mediation in the age of AI" took place from 28 August to 2 September 2023 in Chemnitz and was organised by the Ivan Franko University in Lviv (Ukraine) and the University of Girona (Spain). The aim of this summer school was to open up cultural and humanities approaches in AI research to students.
From 25 to 29 September 2023, the seasonal school on "Humans & Technology - Technology for the Good" took place at the TUC. Prof Dr Lewis Chuang, holder of the Chair of Humans and Technology at the TUC, Prof Toni Granollers from the University of Lleida (Spain), Prof Luca Chittaro from the University of Udine (Italy) and Prof Mateu Sbert from the University of Girona (Spain) from the ACROSS alliance initiated this week full of exchange.
The events focussed on topics of human-technology interaction from the perspective of psychology, usability, user experience (UX), virtual reality and information theory. In addition to the DAAD and the BMBF, this summer school was also sponsored by the Collaborative Research Centre (SFB) "Hybrid Societies", the German Psychological Society's (DGPs) specialist group (FG) for engineering psychology and the TUC's Chair of Humans and Technology.
The seasonal school "Renewable borders: The energy landscape in the European Borderlands" took place from 24 to 27 October 2023. It focussed on the borders between everyday living spaces and production facilities using the example of renewable energies. The aim was to understand renewable energies as an opportunity to rethink borders as integration spaces. The students visited various energy production facilities in Chemnitz and the region and analysed how they are positioned in the public space and in international comparison. Citizens were also asked about their perception of these plants.
(Translation: Ariane Korn)
Mario Steinebach
29.11.2023
