Young international researchers are guests at the KU

The interdisciplinary summer camp offers high-quality scientific impulses on topics such as sustainable mobility, data ethics or climate modeling. Researchers from the departments of geography, sociology, mathematics, data science and computer science are involved. Representatives from companies and from other universities will also be involved. "We were surprised by the high number of applications we received for the Research Summer Camp. More than 100 interested people from all regions of the world have applied", says Dr. Thomas Metten, who organized the camp for the KU. As part of the research camp, these early-career researchers now have the opportunity to develop their ideas for a high-quality and socially relevant Master's thesis or doctorate at the intersection of sustainable development and digital transformation. With this choice of topic, the KU is approaching a field that links the two major challenges of the present: the shift toward sustainable development and the digital transformation.

The decisive factor for the selection of participants was not only the quality of the submitted research idea: "We paid particular attention to ensuring that participants combine a high level of subject-specific expertise and originality in research with personal commitment and interest in a dialog with society", said Vice President Prof. Dr. Jens Hogreve, who initiated the research camp. In view of the great challenges of our time, the interdisciplinary and internationally oriented research camp thus also aims to make a contribution to successful social development.

Graduates and doctoral students from very different backgrounds will now participate: A physicist from Colombia and a political scientist from Austria are among them, as is a tourism manager from Taiwan, an industrial engineer from Sweden and a lawyer from Kenya. Many of the participants have biographies with a strong international influence and have previously studied and worked at universities around the world. They all have a high interest in topics at the intersection of sustainability and digitalization. Their research projects focus, for example, on sustainable logistics in shipping, digital assistance systems for the elderly, data models that simulate the melting of polar ice, and sustainable financial management. In addition to scientific impulses from the participating researchers, the research camp also offers all participants workshops on the design of scientific posters, on design thinking or on applying to conferences.

The “Ignaz Kögler Research Summer Camp 2023” is supported by the “Ingolstadt Science Foundation of Excellence – Ignaz Kögler“. At the beginning of the year, the Foundation had approved the KU's funding application. In May, an international call for applications was issued for 20 scholarships for Master's graduates and for doctoral students at the beginning of their doctoral thesis projects.