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Portal Transfer 2024
(2024)
Liebe Leserinnen und Leser, die eigene „Blase“ verlassen, Perspektiven wechseln, Silo-Mentalität überwinden – was der Wissenschaft in ihrem Innern gelingt, ja gelingen muss, um erfolgreich zu sein, stellt sie in ihrer Außenwirkung noch immer vor Herausforderungen. Dabei gehört es doch inzwischen zum Selbstverständnis moderner Universitäten, öffentlich zu erklären, woran in ihren Räumen geforscht wird, sich in gesellschaftliche Diskurse einzubringen und ihre Erkenntnisse zügig in die Praxis zu überführen.
Die Universität Potsdam hat diese Transferaufgaben neben Lehre und Forschung als dritte Säule installiert und ihrem Gebäude damit noch mehr Stabilität verliehen. Seit Jahren gehört sie im nationalen Vergleich zu den erfolgreichsten Hochschulen, wenn es darum geht, Start-ups zu fördern und aus der Forschung heraus Unternehmen zu gründen: In diesem Magazin berichten wir von der Potassco Solutions GmbH des Informatikers Torsten Schaub, der mit seinem KI-System Clingo komplexe Optimierungsprobleme in Betrieben löst. Oder von der SEQSTANT GmbH, die mit innovativer Diagnostik Erreger von Atemwegserkrankungen in Echtzeit bestimmen kann. Wir zeigen aber auch, wie Forschungsteams mit der Industrie kooperieren, zum Beispiel mit der K-UTEC im thüringischen Sondershausen, um mit wissenschaftlichem Knowhow dazu beizutragen, dass dort in Produktionsabfällen kein wertvolles Lithium verloren geht.
Richtet sich der Technologietransfer vor allem an die Wirtschaft, so hilft der Wissenstransfer der gesamten Gesellschaft. Besonders stark ist die Universität Potsdam hier in der Bildung, denn mit ihren Lehramtsabsolventen schickt sie auch gleich den aktuellen Stand der Unterrichtsforschung in die Schulpraxis. Immer häufiger zieht dabei die Digitalisierung in die Klassenzimmer ein. Wie das gut gelingen kann, ist in diesem Magazin zu lesen. Zudem erklären wir, was die Sportwissenschaft zur Therapie von Depressionen beitragen kann oder wie die Umweltforschung das Risikomanagement in von Hochwasser bedrohten Regionen verbessern will. Ob in öffentlichen Verwaltungen oder politischen Institutionen – überall ist wissenschaftliche Expertise gefragt. Wir zeigen das am Beispiel von Frauke Brosius-Gersdorf, die als Juristin die Bundesregierung zur Regulierung des Schwangerschaftsabbruchs berät.
Der kürzeste Weg des Wissens aus der Universität in die Praxis führt zweifelsohne über die Alumni, die als Fach- und Führungskräfte im Land und darüber hinaus wirksam werden. Dass dieser Weg schon während des Studiums beginnen kann, beweisen die vielen studentischen Initiativen, die hier zu Wort kommen. Sie alle scheuen nicht das Rampenlicht: ob bei Science Slams auf den Bühnen im Land Brandenburg, bei den TEDx-Talks im Hans Otto Theater, beim Kunst-Rundgang in der Potsdamer Waschhaus-Arena oder mit englischsprachigem Schauspiel an der Uni. Öffentlich in Erscheinung treten, neue Formen finden, um Wissen in die Breite der Bevölkerung zu tragen – auch das gehört zum Transfer. Genau wie dieses Magazin.
Have you already swiped or liked this morning? Have you taken part in a video conference at work, used or programmed a database? Have you paid with your smartphone on the way home, listened to a podcast, or extended the lending of books you borrowed from the library? And in the evening, have you filled out your tax return application on ELSTER.de on your tablet, shopped online, or paid invoices before you were tempted to watch a series on a streaming platform?
Our lives are entirely digitalized.
These changes make many things faster, easier, and more efficient. But keeping pace with these changes demands a lot from us, and not everyone succeeds. There are people who prefer to go to the bank to make a transfer, leave the programming to the experts, send their tax return by mail, and only use their smartphone to make phone calls. They don’t want to keep pace, or maybe they can’t. They haven’t learned these things. Others, younger people, grow up as “digital natives” surrounded by digital devices, tools, and processes. But does that mean they really know how to use them? Or do they also need digital education?
But what does successful digital education actually look like? Does it teach us how to use a tablet, how to google properly, and how to write Excel spreadsheets? Perhaps it’s about more than that. It’s about understanding the comprehensive change that has been taking hold of our world since it was broken down into digital ones and zeros and rebuilt virtually. But how do we learn to live in a world of digitality – with all that it entails, and to our benefit?
For the new issue of “Portal Wissen”, we looked around at the university and interviewed researchers about the role that the connection between digitalization and learning plays in the research of various disciplines. We spoke to Katharina Scheiter, Professor of Digital Education, about the future of German schools and had several experts show us examples of how digital tools can improve learning in schools. We also talked to computer science and agricultural researchers about how even experienced farmers can still learn a lot about their land and their work thanks to digital tools. We spoke to educational researchers who are using big data to analyze how boys and girls learn and what the possible causes for differences are. Education and political scientist Nina Kolleck, on the other hand, looks at education against the backdrop of globalization and relies on the analysis of large amounts of social media data.
Of course, we don’t lose sight of the diversity of research at the University of Potsdam. We learn, for example, what alternatives to antibiotics could soon be available. This magazine also looks at stress and how it makes us ill as well as the research into sustainable ore extraction.
A new feature of our magazine is a whole series of shorter articles that invite you to browse and read: from research news and photographic insights into laboratories to simple explanations of complex phenomena and outlooks into the wider world of research to a small scientific utopia and a personal thanks to research. All this in the name of education, of course. Enjoy your read!
Portal Wissen = Learning
(2023)
Changing through learning is one of the most important characteristics we humans have. We are born and can – it seems – do nothing. We have to comprehend, copy, and acquire everything: grasping and walking, eating and speaking. Of course, we also have to read and do number work. In the meantime, we know: We will never be able to finish this. At best, we learn for a lifetime. If we stop, it harms us. The Greek philosopher Plato said more than 2,400 years ago, “There is no shame in not knowing something. The shame is in not being willing to learn.”
As humans we are also capable of learning; thanks to more and more knowledge about the world around us, we have moved from the Stone Age into the digital age. That this development is not a finish line either, but that we still have a long way to go, is shown by man-made climate change – and above all by our inability as a global community to translate what research teaches us into appropriate actions. Let us dare to hope that we also comprehend this.
What we tend to ignore in the intensive discussion about the multi-layered levels of learning: We are by no means the only learners. Many, if not all, living beings on our planet learn, some more in a more purposeful and complex and more cognitive way than others. And for some time now, machines have also been able to learn more or less independently. Artificial intelligence sends its regards.
The significance of learning for human beings can hardly be overestimated. Science has also understood this and has discovered the learning processes and conditions in almost all contexts for itself, no matter whether it is about our own learning processes and conditions or those around us. We have investigated some of these for the current issue of “Portal Wissen”.
Psycholinguist Natalie Boll-Avetisyan has developed a box that can be used to detect language learning disorders already in young children. The behavioral biologists Jana Eccard and Valeria Mazza investigated the behavior of small rodents and found out that they do not only develop different personality traits but they also described how they learn to adapt them different environmental conditions. Computer linguist David Schlangen examines the question what machines have to learn so that our communication with them works even better.
Since research is ultimately always a learning process that strives to understand something yet unknown, this time all texts are somehow along the motto of the title theme: It is about what the history of past centuries reveals about “military cultures of violence” and the question of what lessons we should learn from natural hazards for the future.
We talked with a legal scholar who looks beyond the university’s backyard and wants to make law comprehensible to everyone. We also talked with a philosopher who analyzes why “having an opinion” means something different today than 100 years ago. We report about an AI-based genome analysis that can change healthcare sustainably. Furthermore, it is about the job profile “YouTuber”, minor cosmopolitanisms, and wildlife management in Africa. When you have finished reading, you will have learnt something. Promised! Enjoy your read!
Portal Wissen = Excellence
(2023)
When something is not just good or very good, we often call it excellent. But what does that really mean? Coming from the Latin word “excellere,” it describes things, persons, or actions that are outstanding or superior and distinguish themselves from others. It cannot get any better. Excellence is the top choice for being the first or the best. Research is no exception.
At the university, you will find numerous exceptional researchers, outstanding projects, and, time and again, sensational findings, publications, and results. But is the University of Potsdam also excellent? A question that will certainly create a different stir in 2023 than it did perhaps 20 years ago. Since the launch of the Excellence Initiative in 2005, universities that succeed in winning the most comprehensive funding program for research in Germany have been considered – literally – excellent. Whether in the form of graduate schools, research clusters, or – since the program was continued in 2019 under the title “Excellence Strategy” – entire universities of excellence: Anyone who wants to be among the best research universities needs the seal of excellence.
The University of Potsdam is applying for funding with three cluster proposals in the recently launched new round of the “Excellence Strategy of the German Federal and State Governments.” One proposal comes from ecology and biodiversity research. The aim is to paint a comprehensive picture of ecological processes by examining the role of single individuals as well as the interactions among many species in an ecosystem to precisely determine the function of biodiversity. A second proposal has been submitted by the cognitive sciences. Here, the complex coexistence of language and cognition, development and learning, as well as motivation and behavior will be researched as a dynamic interrelation. The projects will include cooperation with the educational sciences to constantly consider linked learning and educational processes. The third proposal from the geo and environmental sciences concentrates on extreme and particularly devastating natural hazards and processes such as floods and droughts. The researchers examine these extreme events, focusing on their interaction with society, to be able to better assess the risks and damages they might involve and to initiate timely measures in the future.
“All three proposals highlight the excellence of our performance,” emphasizes University President Prof. Oliver Günther, Ph.D. “The outlines impressively document our commitment, existing research excellence, and the potential of the University of Potsdam as a whole. The fact that three powerful consortia have come together in different subject areas shows that we have taken a good step forward on our way to becoming one of the top German universities.”
In this issue, we are looking at what is in and behind these proposals: We talked to the researchers who wrote them. We asked them about their plans in case their proposals are successful and they bring a cluster of excellence to the university. But we also looked at the research that has led to the proposals, has long shaped the university’s profile, and earned it national and international recognition. We present a small selection of projects, methods, and researchers to illustrate why there really is excellent research in these proposals!
By the way, “excellence” is also not the end of the flagpole. After all, the adjective “excellent” even has a comparative and a superlative. With this in mind, I wish you the most excellent pleasure reading this issue!