ITEMS+

International contextual knowledge, intercultural sensitivity and the ability to act are key qualifications today, both in everyday dealings and in later professional life as an architect or urban planner. The international job market offers interesting career prospects both in internationally oriented offices and abroad. However, travel restrictions due to pandemics, but also the increasing diversity of students, can make a stay abroad during studies much more difficult. Here, virtual and blended mobility formats in particular offer a great opportunity to integrate international and intercultural experience into teaching and studies. The development of new mobility opportunities thus makes a valuable contribution to opening up new perspectives in the international and intercultural context and enables a larger number of students to acquire their own intercultural competences.

This is where the project International Tandem Event Micro Series “Theory & Design for the Built Environment” (ITEMS+) comes in, which the SRH University of Applied Sciences Heidelberg (HSHD) and the Universidade do Minho (UMINHO) want to implement in partnership.

ITEMS+ is a DAAD-financed project within the programme “International Virtual Academic Collaboration” (IVAC) with funds from the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF).