BTU receives certificate from the Digitalisation University Forum

During the University:Future Festival, the results were summarised once again and implementation strategies were discussed together with five other universities in the 2024 strategy consultation.

BTU 2023 was one of six universities nationwide to qualify for participation in the 7th round of peer-to-peer strategy consulting by the Hochschulforum Digitalisierung (HFD). This was preceded by a university-wide workshop process to jointly discuss the current challenges in the field of digitalisation and the BTU's priorities for the application. The HFD provided strategic advice to universities that want to actively shape the digital transformation in higher education and, in particular, strengthen innovative, digitally supported teaching and learning scenarios in their strategic development.

Continuing the open workshop process, students, teaching staff and employees of the central institutions as well as members of various administrative areas of BTU then exchanged ideas in several workshops on concrete goals and suitable measures for the strategic further development of teaching and studies in the context of digitalisation. The format created a suitable space for intensive and controversial discussions on making studies more flexible and anchoring future-oriented skills more firmly in the curricula of the study programmes. The jointly developed positions were set out in the BTU report, above all with a differentiation between micro- and macrodidactic elements and formats.

The highlight of the consultation process was a two-day on-site visit by the university forum and the peers on 17 and 18 April 2024. Strategies, goals and measures were discussed, concretised and reflected upon in topic-specific workshops with the peers. Students, teaching staff and employees of the central institutions as well as representatives of the faculties and members of various administrative departments were again involved in the individual workshops of the counselling days. The peers' recommendation report, which was compiled by the peers following the consultation days, provided important information on strategic further development - also beyond the digitalisation processes in studying and teaching. For example, not only digital formats were recommended to make the degree programmes more flexible, but structural changes to the curricula were also suggested to enable more flexible access to the degree programmes. Similarly, the recommendations for developing students' skills were not only focussed on digital and AI skills, but also on their effectiveness in an interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary context.

"The entire process has given us significant impetus for further strategic development," emphasises Prof. Dr Peer Schmidt, Vice-President for Academic Affairs at the university. "In addition to the recommendations of the Science Council 2024, the results of the strategy process of the University Forum on Digitalisation are an important basis for us to develop the new University Development Plan. We are taking the great experiences of the internal workshops with us to drive forward the flexibilisation of studies and the stronger anchoring of future-oriented skills in the curricula of the study programmes. The participatory workshop process will definitely be continued."

About the Digitalisation University Forum

The Hochschulforum Digitalisierung (HFD), which supports universities in shaping the digital transformation, is a joint initiative of the Stifterverband, the CHE Centre for Higher Education Development and the University Vice Chancellors' Conference (HRK) and is funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research.
Since 2017, there have been over 140 applications for Peer-to-peer Strategy Consulting. Of these, 42 universities and a consortium of ten universities have been advised so far. In addition to Brandenburg University of Technology Cottbus-Senftenberg, the following universities were selected for the 7th round (2023/24) of peer-to-peer strategy consulting: Ostbayerische Technische Hochschule Regensburg, Evangelische Hochschule Nürnberg, Eberswalde University for Sustainable Development, Otto-von-Guericke University Magdeburg and Nordhausen University of Applied Sciences.