With the “DAAD Research Briefs”, the DAAD offers a publication series that aims to make current academic findings comprehensible and usable for higher education practitioners. In the fourth issue, Dr Robert O'Dowd, Associate Professor for English as a Foreign Language and Applied Linguistics at the Universidad de León in Spain, reports on the possible uses of Virtual Exchange formats in international higher education and their benefits from the perspective of students and teachers.
In the last year and a half, universities throughout the European Higher Education Area received support from experts in implementing the Bologna key commitments as part of the “Bologna Hub Peer Support” project. For universities, this eye-level support has generated a lot of new input.
In June, the DAAD published the anthology "International Students in Germany", in which higher education researchers and practitioners address the topic from different perspectives. Three questions to Dr. Jan Kercher, DAAD expert for external studies and statistics, who explains the idea behind the publication and the DAAD's underlying transfer concept.
Universities from all over Europe were able to apply for counselling with one or two Bologna experts as part of the Bologna Hub Peer Support project, which is funded by the European Commission and the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research. Based on a peer-to-peer approach, the project’s aim is to identify potential improvements in implementing the transnational higher education reform at higher education institutions. Following the first phase of the program, the project´s advisors have drawn encouraging interim conclusions.
This year, the DAAD once again conducted a snapshot survey in the first half of December on the enrolment figures of international students in the current winter semester. 158 of 268 member universities of the German Rectors' Conference (HRK) took part. Three questions to Dr. Jan Kercher, DAAD expert for internationalisation studies and statistics, who explains the results.
