The University of Oldenburg is dedicating a conference to student research: the nationwide, interdisciplinary event "forschen@studium", which will bring around 140 students and more than 100 experts to Oldenburg on 8 and 9 June.
How sustainably do hotels in Germany operate? Does spirituality help with life crises? And what do genes have to do with friendship? Students at universities all over Germany are researching questions like these. The University of Oldenburg is now dedicating its own conference to them: the nationwide, interdisciplinary event "forschen@studium" on 8 and 9 June. Around 140 students will present their work, with a total of 230 visitors taking part - including teaching staff and academics. This will be followed by a specialist conference on research-based teaching and learning, for which an additional 90 people have registered.
"With the format of organising a student conference and a subject conference under one roof, we want to intensify the dialogue between students and lecturers - regardless of subject or regional boundaries," says Prof. Dr Sabine Kyora, Vice President for Studies, Teaching and Gender Equality. The University of Oldenburg has been focussing on research-based learning for years. "We want to encourage our students to develop a research-based attitude and to engage with learning content independently and continuously. They should be able to say later: I didn't just get a degree, but my studies really helped me progress," Kyora continues.
Students from 50 universities are taking part in the conference, which is being held in Oldenburg for the first time - from Lörrach to Hamburg and from Dresden to Aachen. The spectrum of subject areas ranges from astrophysics to marine energy systems and foreign language didactics to cultural psychology. There are lectures and poster presentations, but also workshops, for example on the topic of "How do I publish my work in the student online journal "forsch!"?". This gives students the opportunity to publicise their findings and successes to a large audience and to exchange ideas about their academic work across disciplines.
With the "forschen@studium" conference, the University of Oldenburg wants to launch a nationwide series of events for student research based on the Anglo-Saxon model. The conference is being organised by Dr Susanne Haberstroh, Maren Petersen and other members of the teaching-learning project "FLiF" (Forschungsbasiertes Lernen im Fokus). The premiere in Oldenburg was fully booked after just a few weeks.
