The annual »Jahrestagung der Kanzlerinnen und Kanzler der deutschen Universitäten« is scheduled to take place at the Bauhaus-Universität Weimar from 19 to 21 September 2024 under the title »Hochschulbau trotz/t Krisen«. After nearly 20 years, this important event for professional dialogue on current challenges faced by university management is returning to the university in Weimar. In this BAUHAUS.INSIGHTS interview, the host, University Chancellor Dr. Horst Henrici, spoke to us on the importance of this conference for university chancellors. Key topics at the conference include building management, sustainability, and upcoming challenges and opportunities for universities.

The slogan of the BAUHAUS4EU project is »An Alliance for a Better Future« – and this already makes the alliance’s goal clear. Namely to facilitate close, long-term collaboration on future topics, shape the future of teaching, learning and research together, and strengthen the European idea. At the end of June 2024, the European Commission confirmed that it would fund the alliance with €14.4 million over the coming four years as part of its »Erasmus+ European Universities« initiative.

Co-working spaces are more than a short-lived trend – they are changing the way we learn and work. These spaces are particularly popular thanks to the fact that they support networking between different fields and offer a flexible and inspiring environment for productive work. Since June 2024, our university has been home to a space that can be used by students and instructors in various creative ways, for instance for seminars and workshops. The project is the result of collaboration between the University Library, the Presidium, University Strategic Development Office, the Service Centre for Facility Management, and the StuKo (Student Government).

The state election on 1 September marks the end of the 2024 super election year in Thuringia. But how can citizens be encouraged to vote – and thus to participate in democratic co-determination? A number of institutions and initiatives have given this question some more thought this year, including two professorships from the Visual Communication programme within the Faculty of Art and Design at the Bauhaus-Universität Weimar.

The city of Khulna in southern Bangladesh lies on two tributaries of the Ganges. Khulna is currently battling major waste issues, including huge amounts of plastic that get washed into the city from the rivers and further into the sea. Since 2021, scientists from the Khulna University of Engineering & Technology (KUET) have been working with colleagues from the Environmental Engineering Department at the Bauhaus-Universität Weimar under the leadership of Prof. Dr. Eckhard Kraft investigating how to avoid waste in the long term and how to implement a sustainable waste management system in Khulna.

In a few short days, summaery2024, the annual exhibition at the Bauhaus-Universität Weimar, will begin. Traditionally, the role of organiser rotates between the four faculties. As this year is its anniversary year, the Faculty of Civil and Environmental Engineering was responsible for the theme and design of summaery. PLAN B can now be seen in big bold letters on posters across the city centre. We are interested in the thoughts behind these five letters. And what visitors to summaery2024 can expect from the four-day event beginning on 11 July. For our BAUHAUS.INSIGHTS series, we asked Prof. Dr. Tom Lahmer, Dean of the Faculty of Civil and Environmental Engineering, about just that.

It’s that time of year again: From 11 to 14 July, students and staff from all four of the university’s faculties will be presenting the projects that they have been working on over the last academic year. Campus will be transformed into an exhibition space and a dance floor — a space to meet, exchange ideas, see each other again, or get to know one another for the first time. It’s summary again.

In early May, the Museum of Forced Labour under National Socialism was inaugurated at the former Gauforum in Weimar. The permanent exhibition showcases unique and largely unknown materials from the history of forced labour, providing visitors with the opportunity to deeply immerse themselves in this aspect of Germany’s past through eyewitness accounts and interactive features. The documents, images, and case histories on display have been gathered over many years of research in archives across Europe, the United States and Israel. They tell the story of forced labour, focusing on the relationship between the German majority society and the forced labourers.

Overnight in 2020, the coronavirus pandemic made it impossible to get together with people in the same place, work in shared rooms, or even attend lectures. A need emerged for something that hadn’t really existed before, or was only used in isolated situations. Online teaching, digital learning and digital classrooms. Without a doubt, the pandemic accelerated the digital transformation. And yet: Four years ago, the Bauhaus-Universität Weimar was not as technologically advanced as it is today, but we were still under pressure to offer quick solutions. Starting in January 2022, the »Hybride Lernatelier« was established step by step as a key element of the »Lernraum Bauhaus« project once the »Stiftung für Innovation in der Hochschullehre« approved funding from the federal and state governments in 2021.

Artificial intelligence, or AI for short, isn’t really a new phenomenon. In fact, its roots go all the way back to the 1950s. And yet: Since the OpenAI company made the »ChatGPT« generative AI system available to the public in November 2022, AI has rapidly become one of the most dominant topics of our time. AI not only influences our daily lives, it also has an impact on university instruction. The eTeach Netzwerk Thüringen is investigating the ways AI is changing teaching and how these challenges and opportunities can be understood by universities in Thuringia.