Events & Projects
The initiative has its origins in the international science evening RWTH hosted in 2021 in Berlin to mark its 150th anniversary.
Building on the takeaways gathered there, RWTH launched other events, such as panel discussions and digital workshops, to give the community the further opportunities it obviously needed to expand on the topic. In the course of these events, we formed the “Next Generation University” initiative.
In 2021/22, RWTH hosted a series of workshops and events for dialogue and exchange of ideas with individuals from academia, business, politics, and the media.
For 2023, a larger set of “think tank” formats is being prepared to expand, deepen and address further issues of interest. The resulting results will be presented on a larger stage at the end of 2024 as part of a pan-European flagship conference. The Next Generation University Summit aims to provide the science community with innovative answers to the big question: "How can we get more out of our universities?"
More information about these events and opportunities for participation will be published on this web page as soon as it is available.
Past Events
Digital-Workshop #3 (November 23, 2022)
Next Generation University – It’s Time to Rethink… How to Transfer DARPA’s DNA to Europe?
How can we in Europe find an adequate response to the U.S. format “Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency,” or DARPA for short? Can universities in this country expand their role as innovation drivers to such an extent that they could become a European equivalent of DARPA? Together with nearly 30 academics, innovation enthusiasts and systems experts, we tackled the promising idea of how to transfer the autonomy, positive error culture, and radical innovation capability of the US-American DARPA to Europe.
Digital Workshop #2 (June 3, 2022)
Next Generation University - It’s Time to Rethink... Translation
Focus: Translating Research Into Entrepreneurial Impact, barriers and success factors. We see translation as the opportunity of our time to work across sectors, faster, more naturally, and, above all, disruptively to solve global challenges. Within this broad concept, we paid particular attention to the following factors in this workshop: Inclusion / networking and communication / information-sharing formats between science, business, and society / incentives and concrete forms of collaboration.
Digital Workshop #1 (December 3, 2021)
Brainstorming Event
At this first digital workshop, we were interested in what experts from universities, foundations, science organizations, and the cultural sector see as the biggest challenges for universities. How self-reflective and willing to change are the players in the science system? What drives them? Given the multitude of challenges within the institutions, but also of a global nature, we wanted to hear assessments: In which areas is it worthwhile for universities to test new things because action at this point promises the greatest possible added value? So, where do we start if we want to build the “Next Generation University”? The workshop thus served as a compass for setting the topics for the following workshops.
Panel Discussion: Online-Series “Talking About....”
1. Edition – “Talking About… How Universities Shape Social Change”
2. Edition – “Talking About… How Sustainability Is Driving Innovation”
3. Edition – “Talking About… How We Envision the Future of University Teaching”
International Science Evening
“The New Fiction of Good Science – in Need of a Paradigm Shift?!” (6. Mai 2021)