UNIC Staff Exchange

What stays with you after an exchange

UNIC – the European University of Cities in Post-Industrial Transition – brings together Ruhr University Bochum and nine other universities across Europe. Exchange between staff members at the partner universities is an important part of the collaboration within the university alliance. Lukas Klöter from Department 5 – Construction and Facility Management took part in a UNIC Staff Exchange at the University of Liège in Belgium. Eva Günzel, a research associate at the Faculty of Social Science, attended a Staff Week at the University of Deusto in the Basque Country. In this joint interview, they talk about their professional and personal experiences and the ideas and inspiration they brought back to Bochum.

How did you find out about the opportunity to meet colleagues from other universities through UNIC?
Eva Günzel: Over lunch with Jonna Tikkanen, who immediately activated her fantastic network. It also shows wonderfully just how important breaks – and opportunities for exchange – can be.

Lukas Klöter: In my case, too, it was a colleague from the UNIC project team who told me about the opportunity to participate.

What motivated you to apply?
Klöter: I was very interested in the opportunity to exchange ideas and experiences with colleagues from other universities. Especially because, although the UNIC universities are located in different countries, they share certain framework conditions.

Günzel: I wanted to get to know Deusto as a UNIC university, make new contacts, and the topic of “Digitalisation at Home” really appealed to me in my role at the interface between the International Office and the Faculty of Social Science.

Being there made it clear just how diverse and different the universities within the UNIC network are.

— Lukas Klöter

What did you experience during your time there? Were there any particular highlights?
Klöter: Being there made it clear just how diverse and different the universities within the UNIC network are. At the same time, we found that we face many of the same challenges due to external factors and path dependencies.

Günzel: What fascinated me most were the different approaches that participants from 18 universities in 12 countries took to the same topics and challenges. Having the opportunity to exchange ideas over a longer period of time is extremely valuable in this respect. Another highlight for me was a very thoughtfully organised city rally through San Sebastián, which really strengthened the sense of community within the group.

One of the aims of an exchange is to learn from one another. Is there anything specific that you learned from your international colleagues and brought back to your work at Ruhr University?
Klöter: We talked a lot about the joint or shared use of spaces. The need to use university spaces as efficiently as possible is not unique to Ruhr University. This has already resulted in a follow-up meeting with colleagues from Erasmus University Rotterdam, for which we have expanded the group of participants on the RUB side.

I would like to bring some of the relaxed and social atmosphere of the Staff Week into my everyday work.

— Eva Günzel

Günzel: In fact, in addition to European participants, colleagues from Ecuador, the US and Korea also took part in the Staff Week. I would like to bring some of the relaxed and social atmosphere of the Staff Week into my everyday work. In terms of content, I would like to draw on a colleague’s virtual exchange course in Malmö and use his concept as inspiration for developing my own teaching formats.

Beyond the professional experience, what did you personally take away from the exchange?
Klöter: Personally, what stays with me is the particularly positive intercultural exchange.

Günzel: Wonderful connections with colleagues from many different countries – and the realisation that Bilbao, San Sebastián and the Basque Country as a whole can be very beautiful places to live and work.