Funding Digital lab internships for Ukrainian students
A refugee researcher is coordinating the project in Bochum. Interested Ukrainian students can apply now.
Update August 18th 2022
Interested Ukrainian students can apply to participate in the program through the Taras Shevtchenko National University Kyiv website.
Original news
In a project designed to enable Ukrainian students of natural sciences to continue their studies, teachers and students from RUB and Taras Shevchenko National University Kyiv (TSNU) are developing alternative types of lab internships. The project Digital Laboratories for Students at Risk (DigiLabStar) is funded by the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) with approx. 143,000 euros and runs until the end of 2022.
Evacuation and escape: How do they impact teaching?
The war in Ukraine has rendered the project necessary, as it’s led Ukrainian universities to organise teaching online to a large extent. For one thing, this is due to the evacuations of universities and the ongoing shelling; for another, online courses are a good tool for reaching the many Ukrainian students who have fled the war to other parts of the country or abroad. However, Ukrainian students of natural sciences who need lab internships to complete their degree are hard hit by the fact that courses are taught exclusively online. Therefore, the DigiLabStar project is developing various lab internships, ranging from online preparatory training, supervision and follow-up for brief internships to internships that are completely virtual.
The project will produce videos and materials that are geared to the Ukrainian curricula for the subjects of medicine, biology, chemistry and physics. This should give students from Ukraine the opportunity to continue to gain credits in their degree programmes, even if they’re unable to complete lab internships at their home universities.
Ukrainian students in Bochum
Twenty Ukrainian students from TSNU will be contributing to the conception and production of the educational materials and will be visiting RUB from October to December 2022. During this time, they will complete internships in various labs and develop internship profiles that match the TSNU curriculum. They will be supervised by researchers from RUB and TSNU as well as student mentors. The 20 students receive a scholarship for their stay and travel expenses through DAAD funding.
Refugee researcher coordinates project
Dr. Iryna Kompanets, a TSNU scholar who fled Ukraine, is responsible for coordinating the project in Bochum. She manages the communication between the university departments, guides the mentors and ensures the linguistic, institutional and cultural integration of the Ukrainian students. Dr. Stephanie Heimgartner from the RUB Centre for Teaching and Learning supervises the project.
The Vice-Rector for Academic Affairs, Professor Kornelia Freitag, is looking forward to the cooperation with the Ukrainian lecturers and students and points out: “The most important goal of DigiLabStar is the sustained support of Taras Shevchenko National University Kyiv, in order to enable its students to pursue their studies despite all adversities.”
Continuous use outside the project
The project team hopes to make the learning materials created through the cooperation available online for students at both universities in the long term.