How are German universities dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic? How are they preparing for the coming semester? And what do international students who have plans to study abroad say about the pandemic? Answers to these and other questions are provided by the DAAD survey “COVID-19 and the impact on international student mobility in Germany”, which has now been published. We spoke with Dr. Jan Kercher, expert for external studies and statistics at the DAAD, who conducted the survey.
Covid-19 has made us starkly aware that our lives on this planet are all closely tied to a common fate. Germany’s response to the crisis so far has been impressive, but we know that this challenge cannot be mastered without science, research, and international collaboration. That is why we need more global cooperation, more scientific exchange. In his video message, President Prof. Dr. Joybrato Mukherjee details what we have already learned from the crisis.
Many DAAD alumni recall their time studying in Germany fondly and would like to support their host country during the coronavirus crisis. In Bonn, DAAD alumna Thi Minh Chau Bui presented Secretary General Dr Dorothea Rüland with 1,000 face masks; 5,000 masks had previously been donated by 450 Vietnamese Germany alumni. In April, the Vietnamese-German Centre of Excellence in Medical Research in Hanoi provided the University of Tübingen with 6,000 swab test tubes for use in a clinical study designed to develop a treatment for the coronavirus.
In an interview, Prof. Dr. Ada Pellert and Dr. Susan Grajek discuss digitalization strategies for universities and how to approach a process that affects all levels of an institution. Both experts were keynote speakers at the international conference “Strategies Beyond Borders: Transforming Higher Education in a Digital Age”.
Higher education institutions have social responsibility. In view of global challenges, greater integration of academic research and teaching is more important than ever. The DAAD study “Internationalisation in Higher Education for Society (IHES) – Concept, Current Research and Examples of Good Practice” examines the role that internationalisation at higher education institutions can play for society.
