Educational innovation for the sustainability transformation
The Eberswalde DNA with its integrative acquisition of skills is the core of the Eberswalde study model, but it also includes other ingredients:
- Sustainability in all study programmes
- practical contacts
- Project-orientated and research-based learning
- individual competence profiles
News
- Green light: On 25 March 2026, the Senate approved the implementation of the ‘Eberswalde Study Model’ project and the associated further development of the ‘Study and Teaching’ division, with one abstention.
- Financial support: The Foundation for Innovation in Higher Education (StIL) is funding the Eberswalde Study Model with €6.1 million over a period of six years. Provided we pass the first evaluation after four years. What began as an idea in 2023 and was given a regulatory framework in 2024 can now be structurally embedded with increased resources.
- Almost complete: With ten new colleagues now on board, the EStM team is almost at full strength. We expect further additions to our team in July.
Your studies at HNEE follow the principles of higher education for sustainable development and, with our study model, become the DNA of all our graduates - for a future-oriented world.
Area 1: Integrating skills into the curriculum
- Concept development and implementation of the EStM
- Establishment of a legal and administrative framework
- Programme-specific testing and implementation
- Development of a culture receptive to change
Workstream 2: Designing adaptive learning spaces
- Participatory development of a learning space development strategy and a spatial structure concept
- Implementation of pilot projects for the design and testing of learning and meeting spaces
- Establishment of digital learning environments
Workstream 3: Rethinking learning support
- “Want”: Strengthening a feedforward culture in learning support
- “Can”: Enabling learning support
- “Do”: Developing competence-based assessment formats
With our Eberswalde study model, we offer you comprehensive opportunities for your personal and professional development so that you can realise your potential and grow your skills.
Prof Dr Uta Steinhardt
Vice President for Studies and Teaching at HNEE
What will happen in the coming years
Curricular anchoring of competence-orientated higher education for sustainable development:
The characteristics of the Eberswalde study model will be further concretised and gradually anchored in all degree programmes at HNEE. In addition to the (further) development of the curriculum, this requires extensive adjustments to administrative processes and the development of a culture of change. The reorganisation of HNEE with the department-school model will support this.
Design of adaptive learning spaces:
In order to enable curriculum-based, skills-oriented higher education for sustainable development, spaces are needed that are characterised by maximum openness of use and flexibility. This includes both the compatibility of → analogue teaching/learning settings with digital elements and their fundamentally student-oriented design.
Contact persons for studies and teaching
Vice President for Studies and Teaching
Professor of Landscape Ecology and Landscape Planning, Vice-President for Studies and Teaching