University Network for Social Responsibility

The Erasmus+-Projekt “Service Learning, Inclusion and Digital Empowerment” (SLIDE) has the following goals:

• Enable universities to design digital teaching, e.g. by imparting knowledge in the use of new technologies.
• Closing the knowledge gaps between assumed and actual competence of teachers. This includes raising awareness of less privileged and/or underrepresented groups and addressing current social issues.
• All of this is to be done in conjunction with service learning approaches.

The SLIDE Manifesto addresses all relevant stakeholders in the field of service-learning. Its statements challenge current approaches to teaching and learning and encourage readers to think about a new paradigm in which online and offline components go hand in hand. The manifesto is intended as a platform for further debate and as a resource for stakeholders.

Download SLIDE Manifesto

The short lecture series Service Learning includes 15 videos on all aspects of service learning

The deck of cards helps implement service learning at universities and includes a total of 78 cards divided into seven categories. Successful patterns of good practice are presented and discussed on the cards. The documented patterns are an essential base of experiential knowledge on service learning and campus community partnerships. They enable teaching and learning related to community engagement to be successfully designed.

More information on the website of the card deck

Campus und Gesellschaft (2020)

Service Learning at German Universities. Positions and Perspectives

Service learning is widely regarded as a teaching-learning format that promotes students’ personalities and adds value to society. Service learning is often used as a projection screen for professions and hopes that are hardly reflected upon. The authors of this book come from both higher education and society. They have been instrumental in shaping the development of service learning. In their contributions, they discuss ambivalences and challenges of service learning beyond preconceived beliefs, draw a (self-)critical balance, provide new food for thought, and point out perspectives.

Further information on the publisher’s website

We expressly thank the supporters of the university network for their support so that universities can teach and assume social responsibility in all courses of study or research areas.

The Research Institute for Social Cohesion (FGZ) is an institute funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research. It is located in ten different German states and thus also focuses on the regional diversity of social cohesion in Germany.

From 2007 to 2013, the Robert Bosch Stiftung funded the development and dissemination of the ‘Do it!’ program of the mehrwert Stuttgart agency. Around 25 universities in Germany have adopted and implemented the key competency-oriented service learning program to date. From 2014 to 2017, the Robert Bosch Stiftung supported the mehrwert agency in the conception and realization of the ‘Academy Education through Responsibility’, which was handed over to the university network in 2017.

Stiftung Mercator funded UNIAKTIV at the University of Duisburg-Essen from 2006 to 2009. In 2010, Stiftung Mercator also joined forces with the Stifterverband to launch the competition “More than research and teaching! Universities in Society,” in which the six winning universities were supported in their work over two years (2011 to 2013).

In 2010, the Donors’ Association for the Promotion of Sciences and Humanities in Germany (Stifterverband für die Deutsche Wissenschaft) and the Mercator Foundation launched the competition “More than research and teaching! Universities in Society,” in which the six winning universities were supported in their work over a period of two years (2011 to 2013). In 2015, the “Campus & Community” funding program was launched.

Das Bundesministerium für Familie, Senioren, Frauen und Jugend hat von 2013 bis 2015 das Projekt „Potentialförderung für Lernen durch bürgerschaftliches Engagement und gesellschaftliche Verantwortung an Hochschulen“ gefördert, das von einem Verbund von fünf deutschen Hochschulen (alle tragende Mitglieder des Hochschulnetzwerks) verantwortet wird und dessen Ergebnisse unter „Campus vor Ort“ zusammen getragen wurden.From 2013 to 2015, the German Federal Ministry for Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth funded the project “Promoting Potential for Learning through Civic Engagement and Social Responsibility at Universities,” which is the responsibility of an association of five German universities (all supporting members of the university network) and whose results were compiled under “Campus vor Ort”.