2022-12-01 –, Stage 3 (Lovelace), WiFo
Digitalization has profoundly changed international cooperation between universities. In one way or another, the challenges posed by disruptive events such as the Covid 19 pandemic can be absorbed, and new pathways paved through digital tools. But what happens to international collaboration in higher education when multiple crises emerge? How can student mobility and collaborative learning adapt/continue in times of civil wars?
Drawing on experiences of the international master's program Global Studies with a Special Emphasis on Peace and Security in Africa (MA GSPSA), offered jointly by the Global and European Studies Institute at Leipzig University, Germany, and the Institute for Peace and Security Studies at Addis Ababa University, Ethiopia, this presentation discusses the challenges and opportunities of international cooperation in times of multiple crises. The Covid-19 pandemic has arguably accelerated digitization in higher education collaboration. To some extent, the benefits and promises of digitization have mitigated some of the constraints imposed by Covid-19 and provided universities, teachers, and students new tools for collaboration. This has motivated our team to systematically develop a full-fledged digital master's program, which is generously funded by the DAAD under the IP Digital program.
However, digitalization also reaches its limits when faced with limited Internet access, low bandwidth, and a rather centralized Internet infrastructure, for example, in terms of providers. Moreover, disruptive environments, in particular political crises and civil wars, can further exacerbate the need for digitalization and alternatives to conventional forms of teaching and studying. In this presentation we want to share our experiences of continuing and digitalizing an international master’s program in times of multiple crises and how we responded to critical junctures that abruptly changed the basic parameters of our study program. To that end, we discuss the benefits and limits of virtual exchanges and blended mobility within a global study environment. In doing so, we shed light on hitherto neglected aspects within the debates on digitalization of universities in Germany, by highlighting a largely non-European context. We are thus synthesizing and sharing the lessons we have learned so far in a program, in which we address ways of dealing with multiple crises both content-wise with our focus on peace and security, and by adapting the framework for teaching.
Enrico Behne
is a PhD candidate at the Graduate School Global and Area Studies, a research assistant at the Global and European Studies Institute, both at Leipzig University, as well as Conflict Analyst and Head of the Working Group on Sub-Saharan Africa at the Heidelberg Institute for International Conflict Research. His PhD research focuses on organizational change and institutional learning at the African Union Commission in the domain of peace and security. He holds a bachelor’s degree in Anthropology (Leipzig University) and a master's degree in African Studies (Leipzig University).