Outstanding commitment to sustainability TUmorrow Awards presented in three categories
To kick off TUmorrow Days 2023, the TUmorrow Awards were presented at a ceremony on 13 June. In the categories “Studentisches Engagement” (Student Commitment), “Herausragende Abschlussarbeit” (Outstanding Thesis) and “Herausragende Lehrveranstaltung” (Outstanding Course), the award winners were honoured for their special commitment to the topic of sustainability. The sustainability office of Technische Universität Braunschweig, Green Office awards the prizes in cooperation with Braunschweigischer Hochschulbund e.V. The awards are endowed with 500 euros each.
The TUmorrow Awards were presented yesterday in TU Braunschweig’s Architecture Pavilion at the start of the sustainability days TUmorrow Days 2023. With the sustainability awards, the Green Office honours commitment in the field of sustainability and encourages more scientific and voluntary engagement. “With these awards, we are not only giving a sign of recognition for the creative and intensive commitment of the award winners in matters of sustainability, but also want to contribute to the development of a spirit of optimism in the university, which will help us to achieve the diverse sustainability goals in all performance dimensions more quickly in the direction of the agreed strategic orientation of TU Braunschweig,” says Prof. Manfred Krafczyk, Vice President for Digitalisation and Sustainability at TU Braunschweig.
The TUmorrow Awards are being presented for the second time after 2022. A new feature this year is the cooperation with the Braunschweig Hochschulbund e.V. Sira Möller, coordinator in the TU Braunschweig Green Office and member of the jury, says: “What was a rather symbolic award ceremony last year has been given a really big makeover this year. For this we cooperated with the Braunschweig Hochschulbund, which provided prize money. We also decided who would receive the TUmorrow Awards in cooperation with a jury consisting of members from all TU status groups.”
The winners of the TUmorrow Awards
The TUmorrow Award in the category “Studentisches Engagement” (Student Commitment) went to the student team of Mirja Meinecke, Lotta Klimmek, Burcu Altunok, Anne Scheler, Viona Greve and Nele Schnars, who together organised the lecture series “System. Macht. Ungerechtigkeit” (System. Power. Injustice). The series deals with forms of discrimination and social inequalities and explores how discriminatory mechanisms arise. The jury was particularly impressed by the fact that the lecture series focuses on the elimination of all forms of discrimination as a basis for social sustainability and is aimed at students, TU staff and the interested general public.
Till Niemann, graduate of the Master’s programme in Industrial Engineering/Mechanical Engineering, was awarded the TUmorrow Award in the category ” Herausragende Abschlussarbeit” (Outstanding Thesis). In his Master’s thesis, he recorded all direct and indirect greenhouse gas and climate-relevant emissions of TU Braunschweig in a balance sheet and made a comparison with institutions of similar size. The jury was particularly impressed by his work’s well-founded consideration of all emissions, its consideration of no less than five of the 17 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the practical recommendations for action resulting from the results of his work for the university.
In the category “Herausragende Lehrveranstaltung” (Outstanding Course), the prize went to Prof. Eckart Voigts, Prof. Bettina Wahrig and Robin Auer for their seminar “Digital Hub: International Perspectives on Environmental Humanities”. The seminar offered students an introduction to climate fiction, ecocriticism and the environmental humanities. The course particularly stood out due to its coverage of a total of seven United Nations Sustainable Development Goals and its innovative teaching concept.
Sira Möller is pleased about the large number of nominated courses, which made up a large part of the approximately 30 applications: “As the Green Office, we are naturally pleased that so many lecturers are already providing qualitative and innovative teaching impulses in the area of Education for Sustainable Development. We would like to further develop the anchoring of sustainable topics in the curricula.”