Do you want to be better prepared for your career after graduation? Do you want to start building a professional network and do you want to stand out from your peers? But do you also want to start contributing to societal impact before you even graduate? Interdisciplinary Community Service Learning (iCSL) welcomes master students from any disciplinary background and university across the world to engage in inter- and transdisciplinary knowledge co-creation. Especially students from the Aurora Alliance are invited to participate.
WHAT IS ICSL?
Interdisciplinary Community Service Learning (iCSL) is a module that can be followed in parallel to any master program and gives you the opportunity to work on real-life, current challenges. Issues such as sustainability, digitalization, globalization, and inequality are so multi-facetted and concern so many different actors that they can’t be addressed effectively
from a single perspective. Therefore, in iCSL you get out of your bubble and collaborate across and beyond the campus: you’re part of an cross-disciplinary student team, but also work together closely with communities, companies, organizations, and
governments. As such, you get the chance to start building a professional network. The module consists of two courses. In the first iCSL course you define key questions together with the actors, and in the second iCSL course you address
those questions through transdisciplinary research. Although participating in both gives you the opportunity to engage in the entire process, it is also possible to take either one of the two separately.
ICSL COURSE 1: DEFINING CHALLENGES
The first course prepares you to identify and define complex challenges together with communities, in
theory and practice. In order to integrate the perspectives of different actors, you conduct interviews and bring relevant organizations, people, and businesses together at an event. The course builds up to the dialogue event at which you facilitate the
group discussion and aim to align all their different views, opinions, and interests.
Student: “The public event made me understand that this was truly a special learning experience that could
continue and impact me for good in the future”
ICSL COURSE 2: ADDRESSING CHALLENGES
In the second iCSL course you address identified challenges, broadly as well as in-depth. Each member
of the cross-disciplinary team tackles one aspect of the larger challenge within their own research project. This
allows for in-depth application and development of your own disciplinary knowledge and methods. Throughout the process, you meet periodically with your cross-disciplinary team to integrate the insights from all projects, and consider the wider implications
for the broad societal issue. As such, you engage in inter- and transdisciplinary knowledge co-creation. By the end of the project you collectively deliver an interdisciplinary report and present the project results during a Dialogue Event. By discussing the outcomes with relevant actors, you aim for actual societal impact.
HOW TO JOIN?
The first iCSL course runs every year in the months November and December. The second course from February till June. Participating in iCSL awards you credits that can be added to your master diploma or you can get a separate certificate. Completion of the first course awards 3 ECTS, and the second 6 ECTS.
SUBJECT
This year the iCLS course will be focusing on four thematic areas: COVID-19; Digital Inclusion; Food; and Circular Economy.
For more Information and the access codes please contact
Aurora European Universities Office: aurora@uibk.ac.at