Promoting sustainable development work through education: This is what UNIKIMS, the Management School of the University of Kassel, has set out to do with the newly founded ‘Center for International Studies’ (CIS). The program offers students worldwide the opportunity to acquire interdisciplinary technical knowledge in order to tackle problems in the Global South more efficiently and sustainably. Program Director Prof. Dr.-Ing. Detlef Kuhl explains the opportunities this creates for individuals - but above all for entire communities.

For several years now, a scholarship program in cooperation with “SOS Children's Villages Worldwide” has enabled people in the Global South to study with a full scholarship for a part-time courses online Diploma of Advanced Studies “Autonomous Wind Energy Production and Supply” and subsequently for a Master’s degree in “Wind and Energy Systems” at UNIKIMS. The aim of the collaboration is to create self-sufficient energy systems that supply rural areas with electricity. To expand its social commitment, in 2023 UNIKIMS established contact with Moving Windmills, an NGO founded by William Kamkwamba. A study trip to the NGO in Malawi in the summer 2024 helped to understand the challenges faced by development aid on the ground. Prof. Dr.-Ing. Detlef Kuhl, Academic Director of the Master degree course “Wind Energy Systems” and co-founder of CIS, was also present.

“The scarcity of water characterizes the entire social life in Malawi,” Prof. Kuhl recalls the trip. There is actually enough water in Lake Malawi, but most of it is being piped to the capital at great energy expense. This meant that rural areas are lacked of water, especially in the dry season. “Malawi urgently needs educated citizens with technical expertise to convince politicians that the entire country would benefit from redistribution,” says Kuhl. The agricultural sector, in which a large part of the rural population works, is also linked to this. “The land is largely managed extensively by small-holder famers with little to no external inputs, which is enough for home consumption, but too less for decent income generation. Moreover, erratic precipitations due to the El Niño phenomenon and climate change increase the risk of harvest losts for these farmers. Training farmers in alternative soil and water management techniques as well as site-adopted crops may help to stabilize yields”, explains Dr. Martin Wiehle, postdoctoral researcher at the Institute for Organic Plant Production and Agroecosystems Research in the Tropic and Subtropics, University of Kassel.

“We quickly realized that our current educational offerings do not fully cover the needs there,” explains the engineer Kuhl. Together, the travel group, consisting of experts and scientists from the Departments of Environmental Engineering and Civil Engineering as well as Organic Agricultural Sciences of the University of Kassel, Fraunhofer IEE and Autarcon, then developed the idea of offering a modular educational program so that countries like Malawi could better manage the technology transformation. The CIS was ultimately developed from initial joint considerations. The program focuses on technologies that are tailored to the needs of countries in the Global South. This primarily includes the areas of wind and solar energy, water and waste water, agriculture, biogas, energy storage and project management. The modules will be available to be booked individually or as a complete package from fall 2025. Participants will receive a Diploma of Basic Studies “Site-Adapted Transformation Technologies in the Global South” from the University of Kassel upon completion of 30 credits, or a total study time of 900 hours.

Site-Adapted Transformation Technologies in the Global South

The target group of the part-time program are development aid workers. “Development aid workers are often very committed. The urge to change something, the intrinsic motivation of the aid workers, is strong. Unfortunately, there are limited skills, particularly in engineering, to actually improve the infrastructure and thus living conditions,” reports Kuhl. With the CIS, he wants to sensitize these people to technology aspect of transformation and improve the sustainability of development aid. 

The CIS program is also aimed at people from the affected regions, who are given the opportunity to study with full scholarship in cooperation with NGOs. “We hope that participants will have a multiplier effect by passing on their newly acquired knowledge and thus contribute to improving people's living conditions,” explains Dr. Jochen Dittmar, CEO of CIS. Just one student can mean a big change for an entire region. 

The lectures will be entirely online so that all students can access the materials flexibly. Different time zones, communication problems, poor internet connection or power supply should not be obstacles to studying at CIS. In addition to live lectures, there are recordings, forums, an online library with literature relevant to teaching and digital learning platforms, as well as personal online consultation hours. This means that content can be accessed at any time and any place, but is still designed to be interactive.

Site-Adapted Transformation Engineering in the Global South 

Based on the concept and experience of the Diploma of Basic Studies "Site-Adapted Transformation Technologies in the Global South", a part-time Bachelor's degree program is to be developed in the next few years in which students can qualify as interdisciplinary or generalist engineers for sustainable transformation in the Global South. By evaluating existing modules, adapting and expanding them and developing new modules on the basis of experience and new insights into requirements, the aim is to create a unique bachelor's degree course to qualify as an engineer for transformation technologies. To achieve this, a cooperation between the University of Kassel, the NGO Moving Windmills and the Malawi University of Science and Technology is being established to create the 210-credits bachelor’s degree program. The existing diploma can be fully integrated as an introductory phase of the study and specialized in more depth. What is unique about this concept is the early identification of students with the job profile of an engineer for technology transformation in the Global South. Because the course is initially application-oriented, the students are aware of the need to learn the basics of engineering and subsequent specializations for a highly qualified generalist training as a transfer technology engineer right from the start. This promotes enthusiasm and motivation for learning content, the quality of the study and the success of the study. A full scholarship will also be available for students from the Global South. To accomplish this a funding application to the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) is being prepared.