network n
| netzwerk n eV (formerly the network of student sustainability initiatives eV) |
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|---|---|
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| legal form | nonprofit organization |
| founding | January 22nd, 2012 in Erfurt |
| founder | including Hannes Bever, Robin Koerth, Verena Salomon, Mandy Singer-Brodowski |
| Seat | Berlin |
| motto | From thinking to action to change |
| purpose | Sustainability and climate protection at universities |
| Chair | Jakob Eberhagen, Nele Hoge, Jana Holz, Josef Kaiser, Jorin Meyer, Theresa Oberstraß, Anna Struth |
| Employees | 17th |
| Members | 92 (as of May 2020) |
| Website | https://netzwerk-n.org |
The netzwerk n is a network of young people who work for sustainability and climate protection at universities. The netzwerk n provides digital and physical platforms to enable networking and the exchange of knowledge and experience. It empowers people to become active themselves, increases the self-efficacy and effectiveness of those who shape change, gets involved in political processes at the federal and state level and researches transformation processes. The active people want to appear authentically, that is, they want to align their own actions with sustainability principles such as sufficiency.
The idea of a cross-university sustainability network was born in December 2010 as part of the UN Decade of Education for Sustainable Development at the "Universities for Sustainable Development" conference in Berlin. Individual representatives of student sustainability initiatives met there for the first time to concretize and present their demands and wishes for a sustainable university. Afterwards, they joined together to form a loose network of student sustainability initiatives. On January 22nd, 2012 the association was officially founded in a student flat-sharing community in Nonnenrain in the south of Erfurt. The current seat of the non-profit association is in Berlin .
Activities and formats
- Hiking coaching: Peer-to-peer coaching program at universities
- platform n: digital networking and work platform based on open source, green IT and data protection
- perspective n: activating discussion series on the future viability of universities
- regio n: Initiation and support of the regional networking of sustainability initiatives
- conference n, fusion n: Networking as well as the exchange of knowledge and experience on specific topics between friends, partners and members of and those interested in the network n
- Educational materials: Collection of methods for sustainable university development methods, collection How do we want to have lived (with FUTURZWEI Foundation)
- Good practice collections: general and topic-specific collections of approaches, projects and structures of successful sustainability at universities - recommended for imitation and transfer!
- Great climate: brings climate protection and thus concrete and particularly effective options for action in the areas of mobility, consumption, nutrition and energy to schools (with BUNDjugend )
- Students design sustainable universities in North Rhine-Westphalia: multiplier training, networking and further training in North Rhine-Westphalia
- Participation in the national platform, specialist forums and university partner network in the global action program Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) in Germany
- Collaboration in the Federal Government's Open Government Partnership for more transparency, participation and collaboration in government action
- Participation in the student working group "Digital Changemaker" of the University Forum Digitization
history
The first year of the peer-to-peer hiking coaching program came together in October 2013. Over the next 4 years, around 50 students were trained as hiking coaches, who in tandem carried out 95 coaching sessions for student sustainability initiatives, mainly in Germany, but also partly in Austria and Switzerland.
The first conference took place in October 2014 at Bochum University . From then on, the netzwerk n brings together people from different status groups who are involved or want to contribute to the sustainable university transformation over a long weekend, roughly every year. A space is created for the exchange of knowledge and experience, networking and developing ideas.
The vision n was written in spring 2015: It was put on paper after a participatory and iterative process: "A sustainable university sees itself as a learning institution. It participatively questions the causes and roots of current and future social and ecological phenomena, accepts and names values and is looking for ways to actively shape transformation processes in such a way that they take into account and weigh the consequences for current and future generations. The University for Sustainable Development encourages critical thinking and creates spaces for personality development for people inside and outside the university. "
The National Platform Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) in the UNESCO World Action Program ESD was founded in January 2016. After the UN decade of ESD , the national platform for the further coordination and implementation of ESD is founded in Germany. Six advisory specialist forums are located there. The Federal Ministry of Education and Research not only appoints netzwerk n to the national platform, but also to the specialist forums for universities and non-formal and informal learning / youth . Representatives of the network n can thus bring the perspective of the young generation, in particular the student body, into the national ESD action plan adopted by the federal government in mid-2017.
The first perspective n took place on May 12, 2016 at the University of Erfurt . The methodically interactive discussion format is based on the fishbowl format and aims to provide impetus for sustainable development at universities and to bring the university actors into conversation across status groups.
The platform n was launched on June 18, 2016 after an approximately one year beta phase. As a networking and collaboration platform, the users are in particular students and student initiatives in the field of sustainable university development. The platform is based on Green IT, Open Source, servers in Germany and a data protection certification.
The second position and demand paper for sustainability and ethics at universities has been available since July 2017. Four mainly student initiatives worked on it for almost a year. It bundles demands and specific implementation options for more sustainability at the university in the areas of teaching, research, governance and operations.
The network n has become 27 November 2017 for the second time network with distinction at the highest level (3.3). The BMBF and the German UNESCO Commission honored outstanding educational initiatives that make an exemplary contribution to better anchoring sustainability in the German educational landscape.
The newly established advisory board n met for the first time in January 2018 with the board of directors of network n . It is made up of various experts who cover the most diverse areas of sustainable university transformation. The advisory board has an advisory, supportive and high-profile function for network n .
The method collection method n was published in May 2018 as educational material for student sustainability commitment.
The 2nd edition of the Good Practice Collection went to press in July 2018. 32 proven and established examples from teaching, operations, governance, research and transfer show approaches, projects and structures how universities can be designed to be sustainable.
In October 2018, 28 initiatives exchanged their logos with netzwerk n and are therefore "part of netzwerk n".
The project team had to move out of the office in Moosdorfstrasse at Treptower Park in Berlin in December 2018 together with the socio-ecological co-working space Thinkfarm. The new headquarters of the project team is Oberlandstrasse on Tempelhofer Feld.
The BMBF-funded project “Sustainable Universities - Thinking. Act. Wandeln. ”With a funding period until the end of 2020, started January 2019 with five permanent employees and six student assistants. The second major project "Class Climate" with a funding period of three years began in February 2019 in cooperation with BUNDjugend . The funding comes from the National Climate Protection Initiative of the Federal Environment Ministry .
In 2020, funding for the creation of a collection of good practices could be obtained through the NOPLANETB funding line of the European Union . The project “Sufficient Universities in Rural Areas: Examples of Success in Teaching, Operations & Campus Life and Governance” extends over the period from October 2019 to August 2020 and focuses on universities as anchor points with a role model and innovation function in rural areas.
Awards and nominations
- Four-time award as an ESD actor at the highest level (3/3) by the German UNESCO Commission within the framework of the global ESD action program
- Perspective n is recognized as a »Sustainability Project 2018« and as a »Transformation Project 2018« from the regional network points for sustainability strategies of the Council for Sustainable Development
- Nomination for Germany for the "UNESCO-Japan Prize on Education for Sustainable Development" 2018
- two nominations for the German Local Sustainability Award ZeitzeicheN
Individual evidence
- ↑ The UN Decade of ESD. Retrieved January 20, 2020 .
- ↑ Today the petition started on the paper: For a sustainable university landscape (network of student sustainability initiatives). Retrieved January 20, 2020 .
- ↑ Hiking coaching. Accessed July 30, 2020 .
- ↑ conference n. Accessed July 30, 2020 .
- ^ Netzwerk n: A vision from 2015. The university in sustainable development. Long version. 2015, accessed July 30, 2020 .
- ↑ BMBF: Education. Education for Sustainable Development. Accessed July 30, 2020 .
- ↑ perspective n. Accessed July 30, 2020 .
- ↑ platform n. Accessed July 30, 2020 .
- ↑ Position paper. Accessed July 30, 2020 .
- ↑ Awards. Accessed July 30, 2020 .
- ↑ advisory board. Accessed July 30, 2020 .
- ↑ educational materials. Accessed July 30, 2020 .
- ^ Netzwerk n (ed.): Shaping future-proof universities. Examples of success from teaching, research, operations, governance and transfer . 2nd Edition. network n, Berlin 2018.
- ↑ Part of netzwerk n. Retrieved July 30, 2020 .
- ↑ Flohr, Michael; Markus, Luca (Ed.): Sufficient universities in rural areas . netzwerk n, Berlin July 2020 ( researchgate.net ).
- ↑ BNE-Akteur netzwerk n eV. Accessed on July 30, 2020 .
- ↑ Prize Winner 2018. Accessed July 30, 2020 .
- ↑ UNESCO Prize for ESD: German candidates nominated. Accessed July 30, 2020 .