Advancing the value of humanities

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Type and Duration

ERASMUS, September 2018 until February 2021

Coordinator

Center of Humanities and Cultural Studies

Main Research

Humanities, Cultural and Social Studies

Field of Research

Kultur und Raum

Description

The skills that build on the knowledge and professional body of humanities, cultural and social sciences (the "humanities") are required. Science, industry and society need university graduates with aptitude for critical thinking, questioning, holistic approaches, contextual situations, constructive dealing with (inter-)cultural settings, creative and interdisciplinary actions. Only in this manner can current challenges be explored, understood, tackled in a future-oriented an sustainable way. The Humanities are considered to be the most important promoter and guarantor of these socially and economically very relevant skills.
Highly specialized professionals need such basic skills for a successful entry into working environments. This illustrates the urgent demand of the economy and its search for talent. What is needed is a strengthening and imparting of these skills, moreover, as a result of the increasing entanglement of the economy and science, of society as a whole, and, as a consequence, of educational policy transformation. These demands are joined by a need for action formulated by political actors. Because people with skills in constructive-critical thinking, reflection, creative and interdisciplinary collaborations are important in sustaining and developing the framework, values and heritage of enlightened, open European societies and socially inclusive cultures.
This is followed by the strategic partnership "Advancing the Value of Humanities - in Academia, Society and lndustry".
From the perspective of cultural sciences and selected teaching formats with an interdisciplinary interface to architecture at three universities, this partnership examines the teaching, tangibility and qualities of the skills outlined and strengthens their relevance for education, society and the economy. The strategic partnership between the University of Liechtenstein, the University of Graz and the HafenCity University of Hamburg takes up ongoing, singular aspirations and profiles of those involved. lt brings them together in a complementary way through peer-learning research, cooperation and exchange and enables synergies for innovative and sustainable output in the transnational network of the European area.
These teaching formats, which have been conceived, organized and documented by the partner universities on the topics of "space" and "culture", are designed as an empirical research training facility. They relate to theoretical and methodological foundations of ethnography and cultural analysis. The setting contributes in an individual and complementary way to a concrete spatial-cultural debate, because all formats are located outside the universities, at the "port" of the city of Hamburg, in the "quarter" of the medium­sized city of Graz and in the "border area" of rural Liechtenstein.

Reference to Liechtenstein

Die Fallstudie des Liechtensteiner Lehrformates ist vor Ort angesiedelt. Die Rolle der "Humanities" in Academia, Gesellschaft und Wirtschaft wird zum einen an der Universität Liechtenstein einfliessen, diese ist wiederum konkret mit dem liechtensteinischen Kontext verflochten. An der Abschlusskonferenz werden lokale Stakeholder zur Diskussion eingeladen.