The project "Digital Innovation for Sustainable Development" by Prof. Dr. Tobias Brandt will be supported for two years. The aim is to strengthen digital teaching and learning formats and make them freely accessible to lecturers and students across universities. For this purpose, the Ministry of Culture and Science of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia is funding the project with 542.000 euros.

The research project at the Department of Information Systems aims to further incorporate the topics of sustainability, digitization and innovation into business and economics courses and to make corresponding teaching materials available to other disciplines. Regarding the content, extensive case studies, so-called "teaching cases," will be developed in the course of the project based on the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals.

In particular, the innovative power of digital technologies to address the major challenges of our time will be demonstrated - for example, poverty, climate change, and gender equity. Teachers will be able to adapt the content to different target groups (Bachelor/Master) and formats (small groups/large events).

"We prepare the content in various formats, for example as a set of slides, video clips or materials for independent elaboration. The curricula and draft exams that are suitable for the target group and format are provided by us," says Tobias Brandt, head of the research group for Digital Innovation and the Public Sector. He is implementing the project with colleagues from the universities of Paderborn and Cologne. In addition to the use in university courses, the content can potentially be further developed into a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC).