International teaching projects strengthened at Münster University
The University of Münster is receiving financial support from the German Academic Exchange Service (Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst, DAAD) for the purpose of strengthening both international cooperation between universities and worldwide digital mobility. Funding is set to begin in October, as part of the IVAC programme (International Virtual Academic Collaboration), for projects in Biology, Law, Social Science and Economics. The programme offers a wide range of funding opportunities, not only for individual teachers but also for universities as a whole – from setting up innovative formats for collaboration and extending digital competences for university staff and students to promoting cross-university digitalization processes in studies, teaching or mobility. Overall, 60 cross-border digital university cooperations will be receiving funding from the German Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) until the end of 2022.
Information on the projects being funded at Münster University
The “Münster Arizona Virtual Collaboration” (MAVAC) is a collaboration between the Institute of Evolution and Biodiversity at Münster University and the School of Life Sciences at Arizona State University in the USA. The project offers students and teachers at both universities an opportunity to establish contact with one another in interactive teaching environments and, in doing so, to gain valuable intercultural experience and promote scientific exchanges. Some of the things being planned are joint virtual teaching sessions for master’s students and PhD students, a summer school in Arizona, the virtual and, if possible, physical exchange of academic staff, and regular meetings of the MAVAC team – not only to assess the progress being made in the project but also to define new objectives.
The “Virtual Forum in International and Comparative Law” project contributes to the internationalization of legal training at Münster University, strengthening the collaborations already in existence with partner universities Łódź (Poland), Connecticut (USA), Bristol (England) and Thompson Rivers (Canada). The project has the aim of drawing up and developing a virtual international law seminar in which students from all partner universities learn with and from one another across borders. To this end, the following measures are scheduled: holding workshops on the subject of Digital Learning and Teaching for Legal Scholars, producing materials for working with digital learning platforms, and extending digital infrastructures at the participating universities – which will include the setting up of a joint teaching and learning platform essential for implementing the teaching concept. In the long term, the aim is for the project to become a comprehensive “Virtual Forum in International and Comparative Law” for cross-border exchanges in the legal field in which more universities in other countries can become involved.
The project entitled “AI, human rights and ethics: platform regulation, data protection” is developing an interdisciplinary course of the same name on the subject of artificial intelligence (AI) and its challenges from the perspective of business, ethics, information technology and law. The course is to be aimed at master’s students and PhD students from various disciplines in different countries. Working together with its Dutch partner universities in Twente and Leiden, Münster University is developing an online course which is designed to be integrated in the curricula of all three universities. Students will be drawn from the Faculties of Law, Information Systems and Computer Science.