Bi-national programme for for the promotion of German-Argentinean university networks
In cooperation between Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin (HU) and Universidad de Buenos Aires (UBA), the consecutive, interdisciplinary international master's degree programme "Open Design" is being established. The Master's course offering will be developed in cooperation with UBA, the Institute for Cultural Studies at HU and the entire spectrum of disciplines in the natural sciences, humanities and design disciplines at HU and its local cooperation partners (TU, KHB, UdK). The course of study is to be offered from the summer semester/2013, and graduates will receive a double degree from HU and UBA.
The title of the master's programme "Open Design" programmatically focuses on an interdisciplinary "design turn" in the sciences. While natural scientists and engineers have been researching new procedures and application options for natural structures and principles in more and more areas since the nanotechnological revolution, the humanities analyse practices and the material culture of knowledge, but are hardly involved in the process of cultural production. And historical-analytical knowledge, in turn, is not yet part of the design process of designers and architects. Interdisciplinary cooperation in the research-oriented Master's programme "Open Design" is therefore to be put into practice already during the course of studies in order to be able to meet complex problems with a variety of current methods. A comparable course of study combining the natural sciences and humanities with the design disciplines does not exist at universities in Berlin or in Agencies. The Master's programme is intended to train 25 students per year and will start every two years in the summer semester.
The 14 disciplines from Buenos Aires participating in the Master's program also form the basis for establishing this interdisciplinary group as a research platform. This link between the Master's level and the research level, which mainly consists of postdocs and established researchers, is based on the fact that the doctoral phase itself is always very discipline-oriented. In this respect, the coupling of interdisciplinary Master's and research laboratory represents a particularly efficient structure.
Financer
DAAD
Duration of project
Start date: 09/2011
End date: 08/2012
