Die Anmeldung endete am 07.4.2026 um 23:59 Uhr

CONTENT:

Currently there are two apparently opposing trends regarding national borders: growing nationalism demanding for more border protection or even border closure, and simultaneously very high cross-border mobility. While sometimes treated as rather abstract concepts or pass-through/transition areas within the European Union, cross-border regions are home to almost 40% of Europe’s population. This means, living close to the border or even cross-border is part of their everyday life, and tangible as well as intangible values are attributed to various places along and across the border. A specific case is the double city of Słubice and Frankfurt(Oder) at the Polish-German border. Every day, thousands of people cross the border at the inner-city bridge over the Odra river. Here, abstract border and cross-border debates become very concrete and localized. The city governments aim for a sustainable cross-border city center that integrates the border bridge as the central points in an urban area of a ca. 1km radius, which is the focus of current planning activities.

Our course connects directly to these activities. In a participatory process citizen came up with four main topics of interest for future urban development: mobility, urban green, places of encounter, and social activities. Together with the research project Move’n’Sense, based at Leuphana and the University of Life Science in Wroclaw, these key topics have been further explored using a participatory mapping survey. Additionally, this course draws on the activities and results of a previous Master TD project (summer term 24 and winter term 24/25). These entail insights on (1) the relation between cross-border identity and perception of common challenges and conservation intention of the Odra river; (2) more-than human perspectives and diverse value frames; (3) different perspectives for a specific urban planning case; (4) visions for a pedestrian Odra border bridge to foster social cohesion and human-nature interaction. In this course, students will work together with different local practice partners contributing to solve local challenges associated to the above-mentioned topics.

PROCESS:

Part 1 Definition of research objective and design
The objectives of the first part are to gain an overview of all preceding work, form groups according to the students’ individual interests, to develop a basic understanding of project management, and to establish a first contact with local practice partners. At the end of this part, the students are set up in their team, know their (potential) practice partners, have developed fist research questions and/or hypothesis, and have designed their transdisciplinary study. Tentative 3 sessions until end of April.

Part 2 Co-creation of knowledge
The aim of the second part is to create some solution-oriented and transferable knowledge through cooperative research. The students will apply a method of choice that fits the research questions, their expertise and practice partners’ capacities and needs, and analyze and evaluate data. At the end of this part student groups have gathered data based on sound scientific research methods that responds their research questions and are valuable for practice partners. This part will include an excursion of 2 to 3 days. Tentative 7 sessions (including excursion) until mid June.

Part 3 Knowledge re-integration
The aim of this part is to interpret your results in cooperation with practice partners and peers to develop a knowledge re-integration strategy. At the end of this part the students have finalized their data analysis and received feedback. Tentative 2 sessions until beginning of July.

Part 4 knowledge communication and dissemination
The aim of the final part is to develop an artifact (end product or strategy for communication and dissemination) and present this to practice partners and/or local community, and peers. Tentative 2 sessions, until end of lecture time.

COURSE OBJECTIVES:
1. Students are able to co-create visions with local stakeholders for the study area through the application of transdisciplinary knowledge and methods.
2. Students are able to understand and evaluate the process through critical self-reflection to learn from their experience and to improve the process in future projects.

Weitere Informationen zur Lehrevaluation: https://www.leuphana.de/lehre/qualitaetsmanagement/evaluation-feedback.html