Norwich University’s Assistant Vice President for International Education David Clubb has been awarded a grant from the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) to participate in the week-long conference, “Germany Today 2015: Institutions of Higher Education and their Internationalization Strategies,” fromJune 14-20 in Frankfurt, Berlin, and Dresden.
Norwich hosts a dynamic and growing international presence in the German capital via its City Lab: Berlin microcampus, making Clubb’s participation in the upcoming conference a natural fit.
During his time in Germany, Clubb, who heads Norwich’s International Center, will also take the opportunity to nurture and maintain Norwich’s current partnership with the Bundeswehr, or German armed forces, in Munich and Hamburg, and to seek out additional partnerships and other opportunities in Germany.
“This program will help me learn more about the German higher education landscape, to identify funding opportunities, to develop internationalization strategies and more,” Clubb said.
Clubb added that the program is designed to give participants both a broader overview of Germany’s higher education landscape and a more in-depth understanding of recent developments on the government level, as well as within individual institutions. Conference participants will discuss funding opportunities, internationalization strategies, and the potential for cooperation between German and North American institutions.
On the trip participants will visit Frankfurt, Berlin and Dresden. Frankfurt University and Freie Universität Berlin will share their experience with one of DAAD’s newest and largest funding programs, “Strategic Partnerships and Thematic Networks” with the group. At Technical University Dresden, participants will learn about the role of strategic partnerships for the development of the high level research projects the university is pushing forward. While in Dresden, the group will also visit the Hochschule für Technik und Wirtschaft, or University of Applied Sciences for Engineering and Economics.
Besides strategic partnerships other topics currently of relevance for German institutions of higher education and research will also be covered, including training of doctoral candidates in structured PhD programs, the increasing importance of third party funding in research, and student and researcher mobility.
At various times during the week the group will meet additional guests from the political sphere, independent research institutes and industry.
This grant-funded program is just one of many initiatives of Norwich’s International Center, which works to promote internationalization, an institutional priority at Norwich University.