Sustainability Report 2023

Quality fund for teaching

Bielefeld University has been sponsoring ideas and examples of good practice in the area of teaching and learning with the Teaching Quality Fund since 2017. Teaching staff, instructors, lectures can apply for funding for small teaching innovations and ideas on topic-specific focal points in order to develop their teaching. In the winter semester 2022/23, the focus was on the topic of "Lehren und Lernen [Centre for teaching and learning] sustainability", where projects could be submitted that dealt with the various facets of sustainability in terms of content or didactics. Further information on the Quality Fund for Teaching can be found here.

For example, the project "Designing space sustainably - applied landscape analysis in the context of current (environmental) changes" from the Faculty of Biology was sponsored within this framework. The aim of the project ending date was to establish the special module "GIS-based landscape analysis", in which students can take a look at the landscape with a focus on vegetation as a scientific subject and critically analyse the use of nature vs. the conservation of species and biotopes. On the other hand, the module serves to impart skills for work in planning offices, agencies and nature conservation.

The "Just Transformation and Tenancy Law" project from the Faculty of Law was also sponsored by the Teaching Quality Fund. This supports a format in which students can develop their position on Just Transformation of the national rental housing stock and contribute to the sustainability debate through an interdisciplinary exchange on the concept of sustainability in tenancy law.

Quality fund plus

The Quality Fund Plus has been available for the first time since 2023. In addition to individual digital teaching innovations (variant 1), this call for proposals also enables teaching staff, instructors, lectures to implement more far-reaching curriculum-related innovations in degree programmes (variant 2) with significantly greater financial support. Variant 2 is aimed at redesigning or further developing qualification or study programme objectives and is advertised with changing thematic focuses. In 2023, the call for proposals focussed on the two topics of interdisciplinarity and sustainability. This was implemented through a cooperation with the Sustainability Office, which increased the call for proposals for curriculum development by 40,000 euros if the topic of sustainability is addressed.
University teaching has a special responsibility, as it imparts theoretical knowledge about sustainability in the various areas of ecological, economic and social transformation. On the other hand, sustainability-focussed teaching can provide students with the skills to deal with complex conflicts of objectives in the area of sustainability and encourage them to reflect on future-oriented perspectives. As scientific and educational institutions, universities can thus also contribute to the development of personal and social competences in order to find solutions to problems in the areas of climate protection, energy transition, climate change adaptation and social and economic sustainability issues. The funding provides teaching staff, instructors, lectures with financial support to redesign or further develop qualification and study programme objectives.