global_innovation

The funding line global_innovation promotes projects that aim to provide students at UZH with a wide range of internationalization experiences. Project applications can be submitted twice a year. The commission for Education and Student Affairs decides on their approval at its last meeting of the semester (May/December).

The funding line pursues two funding objectives:

1. Building and establishing institutional collaborations in teaching with UZH partner universities: UZH’s Global Strategy focuses in particular on sustainable collaborations in research, teaching and to address complex societal problems. It opens the horizon for collaboration in teaching and research beyond the European area. For the realization of the Global Strategy in teaching, the development and establishment of mobility options for UZH students as well as the framework conditions for international incoming students are decisive.

• Establishing international structural collaboration in teaching: The development of reliable courses that facilitate mobility and the recognition of credits received from partner universities and that combine the excellence of the partner universities with the needs and interests of the students with regard to the destinations are central to teaching. In this context, the development of agreements on regulated module exchange, double and joint degrees, and shorter exchange formats such as summer, winter, or method schools will be promoted.
• Enabling Internationalization@Home: Since not all students have the opportunity and/or the willingness to spend some time abroad, they should also be able to gain a variety of internationalization experiences during their studies at UZH, for example through international summer, winter or methods schools hosted in Switzerland, or through the development of Cooperative Online International Learning modules (COIL). Good structures and modules that render UZH an attractive place to study for non-German-speaking international students, e.g. UZH-specific language courses and onboarding even before arrival in Zurich, complete possible funding objectives to achieve the goal of being able to gain intercultural experience at UZH.

2. Joining the European university alliance Una Europa on December 1, 2022, marks a milestone for the integration of UZH into the European Higher Education Area as well as for UZH’s development perspective of not only entering into close international, institutionally anchored collaborations in research, but also developing joint, institutionally anchored degree programs in teaching. In addition to the development of joint Bachelor’s study programs, the piloting of micro-credentials is another focus of possible projects supported by the global_innovation funding line. Projects are funded according to the strategic priorities set by the Executive Board of the University.