En Route to the Comprehensive University of the Future
12 February 2010
The transition of the Ruperto Carola from a classic “universitas” to a comprehensive university of the future is the subject of a new film featuring the realisation of Heidelberg University’s “Institutional Strategy to Promote Top-Level University Research” in the framework of the Excellence Initiative of the German Federal Government and the state governments. The six-minute feature focuses on groundbreaking cooperative research ventures and can be viewed on the video portal of the German Research Foundation (DFG) as of 15 February 2010. On the basis of outstanding technical achievements, interdisciplinary cooperation is seen as key to providing answers to the major issues facing humanity and the environment.
“A comprehensive university, as we have been since our founding, is one where different subjects, different disciplines and different academic cultures collaborate for the benefit of research. In the process, new ideas are generated, notably at the interfaces between those cultures,” explains Prof. Dr. Bernhard Eitel, Rector of Heidelberg University. The film presents central components of the university’s institutional strategy, “Heidelberg: Realising the Potential of a Comprehensive University”, among them Transcultural Studies and the Marsilius-Kolleg. The work of the Kolleg is devoted to promoting ongoing research-related dialogue between the humanities, law and the social sciences on the one hand and the natural and life sciences on the other. The film also introduces the strategic alliance between Heidelberg University’s Centre for Molecular Biology and the German Cancer Research Centre (DKFZ).
The Internet video portal set up by the German Research Foundation in January 2009 is intended to present cutting-edge research in Germany in a multi-media fashion. The portal is in German and English and is designed for the general public at home and abroad. Alongside the film on Heidelberg’s institutional strategy there are other features on the University, focusing on its two Clusters of Excellence and the three Graduate Schools established in the framework of the Excellence Initiative.
All these features can be viewed on the Internet at www.exzellenz-initiative.de.
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