Beyond the departmental boundaries, students in Project „Leonardo“should not only get to know different ways of thinking but also learn approaches of disciplines through joint, interdisciplinary work. In addition, they should also get into conversation with fellow students from other departments and fields of study at RWTH Aachen University and in this way experience the „universitas“ in its original meaning as a scientific community.
Project „Leonardo“ promotes the empowerment of students to use their subject-specific knowledge in a broader context to tackle global and societal challenges and thus to solve problems with responsibility. To this end, three fundamental principles apply:
– Interdisciplinarity is fundamental to solving future challenges.
– Integrating responsibility for science, research and teaching into the university discourse.
– Participation and co-creation of all students in order to solve global challenges.
In conveying this empowerment, the project is committed to the principle of excellent teaching: The students and their knowledge gain are at the centre of action.
In order to ensure interdisciplinarity, people from different departments at the university take joint responsibility for courses. It is particularly important that the different subject contents and cultures not only coexist but rather are constructively integrated into conversation.
Interdisciplinarity refers not only to the type of content students are confronted with, but also to the students’ experience in the exchange with other students and lecturers from other disciplines.
The responsibility of science is reflected in all courses. To this end, the work is always oriented towards a holistic as well as impartial consideration of relevant topics. Students are deliberately required to form well-founded opinions: fact-oriented and differentiated, based on the knowledge and competencies they learn during their studies.
The system of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) is of particular importance here. Within this framework, global challenges are highlighted and all topics are aligned with the problems that are distinguished by the SDGs as relevant and in particular need of a solution.
The idea of participation concerning the content of the project means that there is a conscious decision not to presuppose specialist knowledge and prior knowledge. Courses should have as few barriers as possible. Where specialist knowledge or background is necessary to a certain extent in order to understand more complex contexts, this will be provided within the framework of the courses.
At the same time, participation also means the positive freedom to take part in „Leonardo“ courses: Even those who want to complete a degree program in the standard period of study and are socially involved should have the opportunity to engage with the content of the project as part of their studies.