Strategic Partnerships

TH Köln has set itself the goal of using its international (university) collaborations to build its profile more effectively. In order to achieve this, both a greater differentiation of partnership types and a consolidation of activities within the individual collaborations are necessary. On top of that, overarching organizational development principles such as transformative scientific practice should be explicitly integrated in the thematic and methodological design of partnerships.

With the establishment of strategic university partnerships, TH Köln associates the expectation that

• sustainable, person-independent and far-reaching cooperation and infrastructures will develop across all performance dimensions,
• communication and cooperation at all levels will take place routinely and with knowledge of the respective organizational characteristics,
• a high degree of shared experience and best practices will crystallize in the diversity and density of activities,
• international competitiveness, visibility and reputation of the two universities are increased and expanded opportunities for joint projects and mobility programs arise,
• the partnership is characterized by a similar understanding of the role of universities in solving global challenges and the necessary interlinking of teaching, research and transfer

With objective IV.4 of the internationalization strategy of TH Köln, the following foundation was defined for strategic partnerships: "The foundation for strategic partnerships will be a "3x3x3" system, i.e. they will encompass at least three disciplines [...], members of at least three internal stakeholder groups, and at least three types of activities (teaching, research, knowledge transfer, governance)".

The "Connecting Dots" project, funded by the DAAD HAW.International program line, includes an initiative dedicated to establishing strategic partnerships. We will keep you updated on all news from the project and on future strategic partnerships on this page.