After the Transcultural Student Research Trip to Poland and Duisburg, the participants in the Transcultural Student Research Group | TSRG 2021 on the topic “The Impacts of the BRI on Europe” met again in person at Zeppelin University in the context of the Transcultural Winter School. Five Polish students and two representatives of our cooperation partner from the Boym Institute came to Friedrichshafen for this occasion.
The Winter School took place from the 8th to the 12th of November and consisted of a full immersion week with methodological and theoretical workshops and lectures, the attendance in the Karl Schlecht Forum on “Good Leadership”, the attendance in the Transcultural Leadership Summit on “Perspectives from Southeast Asia” and cultural activities such as a visit to Zeppelin Museum in Friedrichshafen.
The theoretical inputs included a keynote from Professor Dafri Agussalim from the ASEAN Study Center on “ASEAN Cross-Region Cooperation: Mapping the Way Towards Identity Building”,, a lecture with Professor Matthias Niedenführ on “BRI: Globalization with Chinese Characteristics?”, and a workshop with Tobias Grünfelder on “Leadership Concepts”. The methods workshops were designed to prepare the students for the next steps of their research projects and included inputs from Dr Christofer Köhler on “Empirical Research and Data Analysis” and a workshop by Dr Dominik Fisher and Jessica G. Schwengber on “Academic Writing – Book Chapter”. The students also had the opportunity to present their research topics to an international audience at the Transcultural Caravan Network Meeting. The Transcultural Winter School ended with the above mentioned Transcultural Leadership Summit with additional panels, keynote discussions and workshops.
In addition to academic and cultural activities, coffee breaks and informal meetings were purposely included in the programme to encourage group interaction and a truly transcultural experience.
Although the winter school is over, the project continues. The next step for the Transcultural Student Research Group is their work on the book publication and their individual chapters. Stay tuned for the progress!
Our thanks go to the organizers Jessica G. Schwengber from the Transcultural Caravan at LEIZ, ZU; Patrycja Pendrakowska and Pawel Berendt from the Boyma Institute, to all the lectures that contributed to the Winter School, and to our Sponsors MVK and Rolls Royce Power Systems.