Highlights of the DAAD DUHN Summer School 2026
As part of the second DUHN Summer School, we welcomed a total of 15 students and 5 lecturers from the disciplines of Chemistry, Physics and German Studies/German as a Foreign Language from four Ukrainian universities to the Essen Campus of UDE from 5 July 2026 to 15 July 2026. The participating universities were Vasyl' Stus Donetsk National University, V.N. Karazin Kharkiv National University, Kryvyi Rih State Pedagogical University and Sumy State University. The Summer School was organised on the basis of long-standing partnerships and close collaboration with colleagues from the Ukrainian partner universities.
The ongoing war in Ukraine affects not only the students’ daily lives but also their study conditions. Against this backdrop, the Summer School 2026 provided a safe space for academic exchange, practical experience and personal encounters, and complemented the existing study programmes at the Ukrainian Partner Universities through joint activities at the UDE.
Participants were offered an academic subject-specific programme tailored to students of Natural Sciences and German Studies respectively, supplemented by various excursions and joint activities. A key goal of the Summer School was to open up additional study opportunities for the students and to enable them to gain experiences that were not possible, or only partially possible, at their home universities due to the current war situation.
For students of Natural Sciences, the Summer School offered, in particular, the opportunity to gain practical experience in laboratories which were either unavailable or only available to a limited extent at their home universities due to Russia’s war of aggression. As part of the Summer School, they worked in the Inorganic Chemistry laboratories at the UDE, thereby gaining an insight into experimental working methods and research opportunities.
The practical laboratory work was complemented by workshops and academic presentations by guest lecturers from Ukraine – Dr. Serhii Radio (Vasyl' Stus Donetsk National University) and Dr. Dmytro Rokhmistrov (V.N. Karazin National University) – as well as by Prof. Dr. Kenji Kaneko (Fukuoka University) from Japan and Dr. Oleg Prymak from the UDE.
Furthermore, the visit to the Jülich Research Centre gave the students an opportunity to familiarise themselves with an international research institution and gain an insight into its scientific infrastructure and interdisciplinary research work. In this way, the participants were able to broaden their specialist knowledge through practical experience and learn about different scientific perspectives.
Also for students of German Studies, i.e. German as a Foreign Language, the Summer School 2026 provided key supplementary learning opportunities in order to complement their degree programmes, as a face-to-face contact with German-speaking ‘native speakers’ at the Ukrainian universities is virtually impossible due to the raging war. A collaboration with students on the DaF/DaZ Master’s programme and the DSSZ part-time programme at the University of Duisburg-Essen (UDE) enabled the Ukrainian students in Essen to engage in an intensive exchange in German as goal language – both through joint academic work in tandems and groups, and in informal situations as part of everyday student life.
This exchange was enriched by expert contributions and workshops led by the invited lecturers, Dr. Olena Biletska (Vasyl' Stus Donetsk National University) and Dr. Olesia Yehorova (Sumy State University), as well as Prof. Vita Hamaniuk (Kryvyi Rih State Pedagogical University), who provided participants with further insights into various scientific and academic perspectives. This gave the students the opportunity to apply their German language skills in authentic communication situations, discuss professional topics and, at the same time, share different cultural and academic perspectives with one another.