Continuing education: TU Braunschweig selected for pilot project Stifterverband and Heinz Nixdorf Foundation support the further development of continuing education

As one of five pilot universities, Technische Universität Braunschweig will be undergoing the Weiterbildungs-Audit of the Stifterverband and the Heinz Nixdorf Foundation over the next 14 months. The aim of the project is the strategic further development of the continuing education sector in order to meet the growing demand for skilled workers and challenges such as digitalisation and climate change.

The Stifterverband and the Heinz Nixdorf Foundation have developed the Weiterbildungs-Audit together with experts from universities, companies and civil society. The aim is to create a systematic framework for higher education institutions to address their specific goals in the area of continuing education. Together with an external audit team, strategic and operational recommendations and implementation measures are developed. In addition, the Weiterbildungs-Audit promotes networking and exchange between the participating universities and continuing education experts.

There are currently numerous continuing education programmes at TU Braunschweig, which are bundled centrally in the Transfer- und Kooperationshaus. These include the Braunschweiger Brandschutz-Tage conference and the annual MINT-Tag, where current research results from almost all faculties are presented to teachers in the region.

“Within the framework of the Weiterbildungs-Audit, we would like to strategically link these previous, loosely coupled continuing education activities and create synergies between central services and decentralised offers,” says Professor Katja Koch, Vice President for Teacher Training and Knowledge Transfer. “I’m also hoping for an interesting exchange, especially since we at TU Braunschweig have the rare combination of research-oriented continuing education for our partners from industry and expertise in higher education didactics through the Center of Excellence in Lower Saxon Higher Education, which could also be exciting for the other universities.”

About the Weiterbildungs-Audit

A total of 57 universities nationwide applied for the Weiterbildungs-Audit. In addition to TU Braunschweig, the Stifterverband also selected the University of Bayreuth, the Humboldt Universität zu Berlin, the Technische Hochschule Ingolstadt and the TH Köln University of Applied Sciences. All pilot universities will receive an allowance of 25,000 euros each. The project will start digitally on 26 April 2022. The audit process itself begins at the beginning of October 2022 and ends in June 2023.