The faculty’s knowledge exchange strategy
As part of the 2022 target and performance agreements with the Executive University Board, the Faculty of Humanities has committed itself to developing a knowledge exchange strategy and to bundling and presenting the existing diverse contacts and points of contact with non-university actors with regard to knowledge exchange. The aim is to increase the visibility of existing knowledge exchange activities and projects and to implement further measures to promote the exchange between academics and actors from the arts, culture, and civil society with a view to interdisciplinary exchange both inside and outside of academia. In the future, knowledge exchange will be increasingly integrated from the design stage through to implementation as an organic part of research, teaching, and early career researcher development across all departments in the faculty.
The Faculty of Humanities’ knowledge exchange strategy forms the basis for further strategic considerations in the area of knowledge exchange.
Knowledge exchange at Universität Hamburg
In 2018, Universität Hamburg evaluated its knowledge exchange activities as part of the Stifterverband’s knowledge exchange audit at universities, and incorporated numerous recommendations into its Excellence Strategy projects, in which knowledge exchange is anchored as one of the 5 central performance areas. In doing so, the Executive University Board is following the guidelines of the German Council of Science and Humanities. As a University of Excellence, Universität Hamburg sees knowledge exchange as a fundamental component of research and teaching and emphasizes a broad understanding of knowledge exchange.
With the establishment of the Knowledge Exchange Agency as a central operating unit of Universität Hamburg in 2021, knowledge exchange activities at the University were divided into 4 categories that can be combined with each other: innovation and entrepreneurship, co-creative research, social commitment, and education and qualifications. The knowledge exchange areas are to be understood as conceptual approaches into which the faculty’s knowledge exchange activities can fit, but do not necessarily have to.
The faculty’s understanding of knowledge exchange
Knowledge exchange activities in the humanities should be understood as processes of critical exchange with non-university actors in civil society and their viewpoints. Research and teaching in the humanities make basic knowledge accessible and provide a framework for forming a critical awareness for a lasting commitment to shaping social coexistence. In a constant dialog with society, social, political, and cultural phenomena are contextualized and dominant positions as well as traditional forms of knowledge are discussed. Against this background, the humanities’ particular form of knowledge exchange is the ability to critically illuminate knowledge exchange processes in their historical and social context.
The faculty’s knowledge exchange activities are divided into 5 knowledge exchange areas:
- cooperative and co-creative research
- critical reflection on the past and the past and present (cultural heritage)
- inter-and transdisciplinary cooperation
- cultural education
- scholarly dialog
Institutionalized knowledge exchange
A special feature of the Faculty of Humanities is institutionalized knowledge exchange that has been established through the cooperation with and institutional connection to research institutions in the City of Hamburg, such as: