Campus meets Community: The OeAD at the festival in Hamburg

From September 18 to 20, 2025, the Campus Meets Community Festival in Hamburg will open its doors and bring together creative and innovative minds from universities, civil society, and social entrepreneurs to develop sustainable solutions to the major challenges of our time. Over the course of the three-day festival program, they will discuss how new forms of cooperation can be promoted – whether through co-creative teaching formats, transdisciplinary research collaborations, or the promotion of social entrepreneurship.

Claudia Fahrenwald (University of Education Upper Austria) and Petra Siegele (OeAD Center for Citizen Science) will be there. Together, they will give a presentation on the topic: “Citizen Science in Higher Education – Learning to Research Together.”

The focus is on how universities can actively involve students in research processes – not only as learners, but also as co-creators. Citizen science opens up new perspectives in this regard: researchers and students work together with citizens on scientific questions, develop methods, collect data, and reflect on the social significance of science.

The article uses concrete examples to show how citizen science approaches can be implemented in university teaching:

• Practical research: Students learn to apply scientific methods in real-world projects.
• Experiencing social relevance: Research is anchored in dialogue with citizens.
• Strengthening skills: Teamwork, communication, and critical thinking take center stage.

This makes citizen science an innovative field of learning that expands traditional teaching and research formats. The aim is to make universities more open, make research more participatory, and sensitize students to the social responsibility of science.

Further information