Abstract:

This presentation examines models of international collaboration between Hochschule der Medien (Stuttgart, Germany) and The Creative School, Ryerson U (Toronto, Canada), identifying the elements that make it a successful best-practices partnership model that is sustainable in the post-pandemic higher education. This session will highlight the importance of global partnerships in the future workplace and explain how sustainable solutions like the Global Campus Studio model can increase the students’ employability in the future. The presenters will share their journey of fostering this transatlantic partnership and present specific strategies on sustainable transatlantic collaboration that has proven vital in response to COVID-19 global health pandemic and beyond.
The global health pandemic has created an opportunity for higher education institutions to reinvision global learning and international collaboration. Institutions are tasked with finding innovative and sustainable solutions to enable students and faculty to access and engage in unique global learning opportunities in response to global changes and challenges in the post-pandemic era.

Background:
With COVID-19 limiting global mobility, Hochschule der Medien (HdM), working alongside strategic partners such as, The Creative School at Ryerson University, sought to reinvision global experiences, co-creation and collaboration. With access and inclusion as a core priority of their institution’s internationalization strategy, both institutions came together to rethink and enhance international learning opportunities for students and faculty through new sustainable models

Virtual International Collaboration and Co-creation through the Global Campus Studio (GCS) model: Piloted in 2018, GCS is a virtual hub for creative international collaboration and co-creation, offering students the opportunity to collaborate with diverse international teams, using the connective affordances of contemporary digital technology. This for-credit course at Ryerson University runs concurrently with select international academic partners including HdM, where students from various interdisciplinary and international backgrounds collaborate on hands-on creative projects, ranging from immersive VR experiences, live events, media challenges, to board games and beyond. Students who complete the course gain valuable skills in creative development, media entrepreneurship, and design thinking, as well as develop cultural understanding, gain global leadership strategies, enhance knowledge of digital technologies and refine strategies for remote collaboration. Each year, over 100 students from around the world co-create and collaborate on a creative output centered around a global theme such as Food Insecurity and Climate Change. This past fall, The Creative School, HdM alongside two other academic partners (University of the Arts in London and Seoul Institute of the Arts) Reimagined the Creative Fields Post COVID-19. HdM and The Creative School worked on a challenge with an external partner from the media industry: Wiley & Sons, a global publisher with subsidiaries in Canada and Germany.

Outline:
- Re-Envisioning Global Collaboration through a 21st-Century Lense
- Ideation to Implementation: Stages of Development
- Reflection, Lessons Learned, & Anticipated Obstacles
- The Future of Sustainable International Collaboration

Keywords:

Joint education projects, media studies, higher education, creativity.