International partnership in education

PH Ludwigsburg and Oslo Metropolitan University (Oslo Met): Development and strategic cooperation

Establishing and maintaining a strategic partnership

The INVITE project funded by the DAAD with finance from the BMBF has made a decisive contribution to establishing and maintaining a strategic partnership. It financed travel between Germany and Norway and thus facilitated opportunities to get to know each other. The long project duration also helped with establishing good working relations and implementing the first milestones in our cooperation.

The prospects of successful cooperation with Oslo Metropolitan University were deemed to be rather limited before the project began, even though this partner higher education institution is the favourite destination university among student teachers from PH Ludwigsburg who want a stay abroad. Contacts with this higher education institution were not yet sufficiently consolidated during submission of the application. PH Ludwigsburg has in the meantime been collaborating closely with two faculties: the ‘Faculty of Technology, Art and Design’ (TKD) and the ‘Faculty of Education and International Studies’ (LUI).

Initial activities and intensification of cooperation

Professor Petter Øyan, who has already held various leading positions at Oslo Met, was invited to our hybrid Teaching Week on the topic of diversity in the first year of the project. Further activities were subsequently planned: there was cooperation between the ‘maker spaces’ at both institutions and in the domain of ‘art’.

The second year of the project then saw Oslo Met being belatedly included as a partner in the ongoing INVITE project – with approval from the DAAD. Our return visit to the ‘TKD’ in Oslo followed in May 2022 with the intention of eliciting internship opportunities for students. The idea emerged that a strategic partnership be established and maintained to closely collaborate in the future in the sectors of teaching, research and student exchange.

Attestation and future steps

This strategic partnership was attested in September 2023 during a delegation trip to Oslo. Rector Jörg-U. Keßler and the Prorector for Teaching Silje Fekjær signed our framework agreement regarding a planned long-term partnership. Care is to be taken to ensure that all higher education protagonists are included within its implementation.

This new strategic partnership in Europe sees the Ludwigsburg University of Education realising a significant objective of our internationalisation strategy adopted in 2022 by the Senate and University Council.

Rector Jörg-U. Keßler

Colleagues at PH Ludwigsburg are currently collaborating with an LUI team on a ‘course package’ dealing with the topic ‘Social Studies Teaching for an Interconnected World’. This is intended to be worth 20 ECTS credits and is expected to be taught in tandem between the Social Sciences and English departments. There was an imbalance in the number of student exchanges prior to the start of the project.

Whereas Oslo Met received a large number of PH students, we have until now been unable to welcome any incoming students from Norway. The desired bundling of English-language seminars into a larger module – as typically occurs in the Nordic countries – should ensure that our exchange becomes more balanced.

A return visit from Oslo is planned at the end of 2024 and the first teaching tandems that provide collective teaching are already in place. The INVITE project’s closing conference is intended to create the framework conditions to consolidate further collaboration.

Networking and exchange

Brown bag session

Hour-long discussions during lunch breaks twice a semester dealing with topics ranging from Lehramt.International or project objectives to targeted attainment by staff members at Ludwigsburg University of Education.

Lecture series

A lecture series dealing with a major topic for students at Ludwigsburg University of Education. The contributors include staff from Ludwigsburg University of Education and our partner higher education institutions.

Further information & contact

Project homepage

Contact

Dr Nina Jäger
Director of the International Office
Pädagogische Hochschule Ludwigsburg/ Ludwigsburg University of Education
Reuteallee 46
71634 Ludwigsburg
Tel.: +49 (0)7141 140-1417
E-Mail: nina.jaeger@ph-ludwigsburg.de