With a strategic cooperation agreement, the city and university have been writing a new chapter in the history of their collaboration for a year now. At their most recent joint meeting, the university and city leaders gave a positive interim assessment.
"Together we are strong," said Lord Mayor Jürgen Krogmann and University President Prof Dr Ralph Bruder. "Thanks to the many years of successful cooperation between the university and the city, this realisation may not be new - but the even closer interlinking of strategic core areas already shows after just one year that we are mutually advancing each other all the more." Both sides rated the progress made in areas such as climate neutrality, the development and visibility of the university within the city centre and the start-up culture as consistently positive.
Striving for the age-appropriate city
Against the backdrop of demographic change, the city and university have jointly focused on the topic of age-friendly cities and developed a German-language questionnaire based on guidelines from the World Health Organisation (WHO). An initial survey in Oldenburg was very well received, with over 900 responses out of a total of 2,000 distributed. The presentation of the initial results in October also met with great interest. The team of urban social planners and prevention and rehabilitation researchers from the university are planning a representative survey every two years in future to identify successful measures and potential for improvement.
The German-language Oldenburg questionnaire, which has since been adopted by the WHO, is based on a predecessor developed in The Hague in the Netherlands, which has already been used internationally by cities to analyse their age-friendliness. "The project illustrates the efforts of the city and university to face the social challenges of our time in a scientifically sound and practice-oriented manner," emphasises Lord Mayor Krogmann.
Tackling future tasks together
With regard to another future task - the transformation of the energy system - both sides also believe that Oldenburg is ideally positioned as a centre for energy research: In a recently approved programme of the state of Lower Saxony, the university is involved in four of six sub-projects, in three of them in a leading role and additionally with the university's C3L - Center for Lifelong Learning in the transfer programme. In total, the "Transformation of Lower Saxony's Energy System" programme bundled at the Energy Research Centre of Lower Saxony (efzn) has a volume of over 58 million euros over five years. The city administration was also involved in the preparation of the successful university proposal via the Oldenburg Energy Cluster OLEC e.V., and the city's economic development agency provided financial support for the conceptualisation of the transfer concept.
The aim is to make research results usable for society, for example with regard to wind energy and the hydrogen economy, be it in the training and further education of skilled workers or in the promotion of start-ups. "The energy transition continues to need new ideas and well-trained specialists," emphasises President Bruder. "We would like to thank the city for its support in the application process and the perfect cooperation."
Oldenburg's entrepreneurial spirit is also illustrated by the first success in the proposal for a "Startup Factory" in north-west Germany under the aegis of the universities of Oldenburg and Bremen - with the support of regional businesses and seven other universities. The Federal Ministry of Economics has selected the project entitled "Lighthouse Northwest" as one of 15 nationwide and is funding the concept development until February 2025. The aim, also supported by the city of Oldenburg, is to combine start-up support in Lower Saxony and Bremen and to create a seamless path from the initial business idea to market entry with complementary services. The universities of Oldenburg and Bremen are planning an event for all supporting stakeholders in January.
Making the start-up spirit visible in the city centre
"Start-up finds the city" is the title of another project that the university and the city have successfully acquired together from the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) and which will start at the turn of the year in the Schlaues Haus on Schloßplatz. The plan is to set up a "start-up showcase" and a market research laboratory in the city centre. The university's start-up and innovation centre (GIZ) and the city's business development department will cooperate during the three-year implementation phase - as they did when preparing the proposal. "This project further increases the visibility of the university in the city centre - keyword: Campus Oldenburg," says Bruder.
The city is also on board with the AHOI_MINT educational project at the Schlaues Haus under the direction of university physics didactics expert Prof Dr Michael Komorek - be it in the strategy group, on the project advisory board or as a financial sponsor of the AHOI-MINT days, which were last held on the Schloßplatz in the summer. And when the project team, which aims to get young people in the region interested in maths, Computing Science, natural sciences and technology, founded its own support association together with other stakeholders these days, the city also provided support - for example in drafting the association's statutes.
Making progress on the path to climate neutrality
The university and the city continue to actively work together to protect the climate and support each other in their ambitious goals, for example in achieving climate neutrality (University 2030, City 2035). This is currently particularly evident when it comes to cycling in the immediate vicinity of the university. While the city has recently promoted the "green wave" on Ammerländer Heerstraße - thanks to LED displays, cyclists can adjust their cycling behaviour to the traffic lights - the university recently put a new bicycle parking facility into operation on the Haarentor campus.
In 2025, urban developers will be looking at the cycle path on Pophankenweg and the infrastructure on Infanterieweg, among other things. The focus will also be on the mobility concept for the planned medical campus on Pophankenweg. There will also be close cooperation in the "StadtGrün naturnah" labelling process of the Bündnis Kommunen für biologische Vielfalt e.V. (Communities for Biodiversity Alliance), in which the city of Oldenburg is involved. The aim is to bring more nature into the city. The university will be involved in the labelling process as a cooperation partner and concrete projects are also to be implemented on campus. University members can also actively participate in a campaign in the Haarenniederung in 2025 to rid the nature reserve of non-native plant species.
