The performance of the improv theater “Improkokken” brought the event to a humorous close.
Photo: Carina Betz
25- 27.09.2023 – Hannover
Under the motto “We need to talk! Themed Week on Sustainable Science”, DG Hoch N invited us to a themed week in Hanover in cooperation with the Volkswagen Foundation. With over 100 students, professors, sustainability officers and academic staff with an interest in “sustainable science”, there were many interesting people and exciting impulses for exchange.
The aim of the organizers was to get into conversation with the people who work at universities on a daily basis in order to make the university and science system more sustainable. To this end, the focus was on exchange formats that open up spaces for relationships and mutual encounters.
We want to think about formats differently to how we have often experienced them in academia to date.
Tobias Schönwitz
Methods such as a “taboo quartet”, which involved talking in small groups about aspects that are usually kept quiet in the academic system, or so-called “empathy walks”, in which two teams listened to each other for 10 minutes and talked about each other’s experiences and understanding of the topic of sustainable development at their own university, promoted a feeling of mutual connection.
For us, the hub generated exciting ideas, impulses and insights and promoted networking overall. The results of the individual hubs and a documentation of the three-day event can be found here.