The HSZG is one of ten universities supported by the joint program "One University - One Book" of the Stifterverband and the Klaus Tschira Foundation in cooperation with DIE ZEIT.
The funding amount for each winning university is 10,000 euros for the implementation of the project. The funds are intended for the fulfillment of the tasks of the Zittau/Görlitz University of Applied Sciences. They will be used to implement the award-winning project "The creative challenges of open societies at their margins using the example of the transformation process in Lusatia" with "The open society: A plea for freedom and order in the 21st century" by Stefan Brunnhuber. "We are delighted that our university is among the winners of this competition," said Rector Professor Alexander Kratzsch.
Dr. phil. habil. Maik Hosang and his students took part in the competition with this project. What motivated them to do so? "We live in a time full of exciting and sometimes threatening challenges - the main ones being climate change, digitalization and globalization. There are no ready-made solutions to any of these future issues; they have to be sought and found in an open and interdisciplinary discourse. However, this open discourse is not always easy, as even scientists tend to operate in specialist areas. It is easy to celebrate the successes of new technologies, but difficult to discuss their social and psychological effects at the same time. What's more, as unresolved crises also trigger fears, quite a few people tend to retard or persist in pre-modern, non-open, ideologically closed forms. This also affects relevant sections of the population in all modern European democracies - and especially where the global challenges are exacerbated by particular regional crises: for example, the structural change in Lusatia forced by the coal phase-out.
Karl Popper addressed this key issue in his book "The Open Society and its Enemies". And Stefan Brunnhuber - Professor of Psychology and Transformation at Mittweida University of Applied Sciences - took it a step further for the present day in his book "Die offene Gesellschaft. A plea for freedom and order in the 21st century". Following on from this, lecturers and students at the HSZG are organizing various discourses for this core competence. This will take place in four formats: an interdisciplinary lecture series, a conference with students, lecturers, representatives of regional civil society and national experts, the integration of the topic into the teaching of various degree courses and a short competition with students from various faculties on the topic: "Write down or draw a picture in three sentences: What is an open society for you?"
With the competition "One university - one book", the initiators of the competition want to strengthen the exchange and identification of all university members with their university, get people talking about the selected book and get them excited about a common topic. It is up to the universities to decide whether to postpone their planned activities to the next semester due to the current coronavirus situation or to start with original virtual formats in the summer semester. "Especially in times when it is not possible to meet physically, the joint examination of a book throughout the university offers a good opportunity to creatively counteract isolation," says Volker Meyer-Guckel, Deputy Secretary General of the Stifterverband. "The spirit of a university is not only recognizable in lectures and seminars," emphasizes Beate Spiegel, Managing Director of the Klaus Tschira Foundation. "It can also be seen in how well employees from different departments communicate with each other. 'One university - one book' promotes this togetherness through an exchange on a topic chosen by the university itself."
The decisive factor for funding the projects was not the work itself, but the reason why the work was chosen and the plan for communicating about it. Exceptional communication formats are intended to promote the discussion of a topic across all hierarchical boundaries, further develop the communication culture at universities and strengthen the connection between universities and society.
Detailed information on the winning projects can be found here .
