Internationalisation
Global commitment and an international profile
FAU is one of Germany’s leading research universities with outstanding performance in research and an international orientation in research and teaching. In order to maintain and increase its attractiveness and diversity, FAU intends to improve its overall international position by promoting its research strengths and focus areas over the next few years. One of the major goals of the Faculty is winning highly qualified young researchers from abroad.
The central challenge in FAU’s internationalisation in the coming years will be promoting the established and increasingly diverse culture of internationalisation through complementary strategic institutional measures. This is the only way to ensure that common goals and challenges are addressed efficiently, synergies are utilised effectively and that common quality standards are observed, state of the art services are offered and successful examples of good practice are systematically applied to the entire University.
FAU was one of the first German universities to be certified in the HRK internationalisation audit in 2012. The University’s internationalisation strategy covers all dimensions of university work – research, studying and teaching, as well as knowledge transfer and further training, services and infrastructure.
Some of the major successes of the internationalisation strategy include an agreement between FAU and Peking University in China to establish a graduate school for medical engineering, and the establishment of a liaison office for the Nagoya Institute of Technology in Japan at FAU’s Faculty of Engineering.
In the area of infrastructure, the University has established a Language Service that offers FAU members services related to foreign languages, and introduced international research marketing measures and a research alumni network. The re-auditing process began in 2015 and aims to increase internationalisation measures in FAU’s Research Focus Areas.
Research
International research activities
The majority of FAU professors are involved in collaborations with researchers in other countries and many of them spend time at universities abroad as visiting professors or guest researchers. These partnerships lead to many joint publications, significant amounts of third-party funding and excellent relationships with international researchers and students.
One of the many excellent international collaborations is the TRENAL project, which is funded by the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD). In this network FAU researchers are working with colleagues at Yale University and University College London and using an interdisciplinary and translational approach to develop new forms of treatment for kidney diseases. Another example is the Chair of Photonic Technologies, which is setting up a laboratory for additive manufacturing in collaboration with Kazan Federal University in Russia. The project is being funded by a mega grant of around two million euros from the Russian Ministry of Education and Science.
International research funding
Under their cooperation agreement, FAU and the São Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP) (Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo), announce a joint call for proposals for collaborative research projects involving FAU and the Brazilian state of São Paulo.
In particular, this call for proposals aims to promote the mobility of researchers, intensify the exchange of information between the two regions, and to enable visits from academic delegations, seminars, workshops and symposiums to be organised in order to strengthen the collaboration between FAU and the São Paulo region.
FAPESP/FAU seed funding is open to researchers from all subjects and may be awarded for projects on any topic. FAPESP and FAU will each provide funding of up to EUR 5000 per proposal per year for a maximum of 24 months. A maximum of 4 projects will be awarded funding.
The deadline for submitting applications was 24 April 2017.
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Results
Bavarian University Centres for Latin America (BAYLAT) and California (BaCaTeC)
To strengthen ties with universities in certain geographical regions which are of international significance, FAU has established offices for two international academic centres whose services are available to all universities in Bavaria: the Bavaria California Technology Centre (BaCaTeC, since 2000) and the Bavarian University Centre for Latin America (BAYLAT, since 2009). As FAU has more contacts in Latin America than any other Bavarian university, BAYLAT was established in Erlangen. Its aim is to continue strengthening the long tradition of collaboration between Bavaria and Latin America. Through BaCaTeC, the Free State of Bavaria supports cooperation between researchers from Bavaria and California.
Confucius Institute Nürnberg-Erlangen
In collaboration with Beijing Foreign Studies University, sinologists at FAU established a Confucius Institute in Nuremberg in 2005, which aims to consolidate FAU’s connections to selected Chinese institutions. The increase in research activities focusing on East Asia has also resulted in an increase in the number of doctoral candidates from China.
Student mobility
Students have the opportunity to spend time abroad with one of FAU’s many collaborations with universities all over the world. An overview of Erasmus partnerships or formalised student exchange programmes is available under Education.
Further detailed information is available from institutions with close ties to FAU that also provide support for student exchanges:
- Bavaria California Technology Centre (BaCaTeC) (Erlangen)
- Centre de Coopération Universitaire Franco-Bavaroise (BFHZ) (Munich)
- Bavarian Academic Centre for Central, Eastern and South-eastern Europe (Bayhost) (Regensburg)
- Bavarian University Centre for Latin America (BAYLAT) (Erlangen)
- Bavarian-Indian Centre for Business and University Co-operation (BayIND) (Hof)
- Bavarian Academic Centre for China (BayCHINA) (Bayreuth)