Prizes Awarded to International Projects at First “Global Gallery”

The goal of the event was to demonstrate to the visitors the University’s strong international focus. “There are many international projects at TU Dortmund University, but they are not well-known enough,” said Dr. Barbara Schneider, Director of the International Office, in her welcome address at the International Meeting Center (IBZ) of TU Dortmund University. These projects were presented in the framework of a “Gallery Walk”: The most important facts about each of the 30 initiatives – which ranged from student projects to internationalization measures at faculty level to research projects – were displayed on elaborately designed posters. Visitors were also able to talk to the people involved in the projects. All guests could then vote for their favorite project.

The three winning projects
 
Among the three projects with the most votes was the “Umweltgerechtigkeit, Environmental Justice, Justiça Ambiental” project carried out by students of the Faculty of Spatial Planning. Poor people often live in an environment that makes them ill. Environmental injustice is particularly evident in Brazil’s metropolises São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. That is why the student project is concerned with the correlation between environment, health, and social conditions in Brazil. In the framework of an excursion to Brazil, the participants gathered data on air quality in various suburbs of the two cities and drew up maps that showed the different levels of pollution there.

The second winning project is hosted by the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering. Within the “Engineers Without Borders Challenge”, teaching degree students from TU Dortmund University, together with American students from the University of Georgia, are working on concrete problems in development cooperation. The aim is to find long-term, practicable, and culture-sensitive solutions. By participating in the challenge, participants learn to think outside the box and how to work in a team, hone their self-organization and communication skills, and get to grips with everyday life and the cultural framework in the countries for which they are developing solutions. 

In the third project awarded € 1,500, Dr. Enrico Michelini from the Institute of Sports and Sports Science is exploring – in cooperation with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) – the role of sports in refugee camps. In May 2019, Dr. Michelini spent four weeks in refugee camps in Niamey, the capital city of Niger in West Africa. His studies revealed that sport in refugee camps is not only important in terms of physical exercise but also for an individual’s mental strength. Sport is also used as an educational measure. In the next step, Dr. Michelini will develop a concept together with the United Nations for the optimum support of refugees through sport.

Rector praised internationality
 
“I’m delighted that the call for proposals met with such a tremendous response and that 30 projects from a wide variety of areas applied immediately the first time round,” said Professor Ursula Gather, President of TU Dort­mund University, before presenting the prizes. “Thinking, and thus also research, is something that does not happen and cannot happen within national borders.”

The internationality of TU Dortmund University is mirrored, among others, by student figures. Of the some 34,200 students at TU Dortmund University, 4,026 are international students: 710 of them come from China, slightly less from Turkey, and 327 from Syria.

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