In Spring 2021, the Angewandte in cooperation with Tongji University Shanghai launches its new joint master’s programme in “Global Challenges and Sustainable Developments” as a double degree master’s.
 
The joint master’s programme is located at the newly established department for “International Programmes in Sustainable Developments” at the Angewandte which offers new, innovative, and future-oriented international study programmes as well as international cooperation projects in sustainable quality education.
 
The master’s programme in “Global Challenges and Sustainable Developments” focuses on innovative forms of university education in aesthetic, artistic, and inter-, cross- and transdisciplinary strategies, as well as in trans- and intercultural competences for shaping and designing the future world.
 
The programme provides students from Europe and China with the necessary knowledge and competences to face the grand global challenges. Students will acquire skills and abilities that support them in “provoking the system” by combining artistic methods, creative strategies, and design-thinking concepts, with a deeper understanding of societal issues and challenges. They will obtain the competences to critically reflect and consider the global impacts of economic and political changes in the relationship between China and the Western world.
 

Target Group

This international English-language programme addresses students from all art and design fields as well as students from all scientific and scholarly disciplines with a special interest in the intercultural exchange between China and Europe.
 

Structure and Content

The curriculum requires that students spend two semesters at the respective host university. In the course of the programme students from both universities meet during two semesters, once in Vienna and once in Shanghai. Students initially enrolled at the Angewandte will acquire 60 ECTS at Tongji University in Shanghai.
 
Students will gain:

• inter- and transcultural competences with a focus on Chinese-European relations (through the intercultural exchange and mobility of the students);
• profound knowledge in innovative strategies in research, design and the realisation of cross-disciplinary projects (by learning how to cross, transcend, and exceed disciplinary borders by means of artistic and aesthetic methods);
• sustainability and responsibility as basic attitudes in artistic and design approaches (by means of outreach into society through special internship, workshop, and project programmes).

The programme is project-based and gives students the freedom to choose most parts of their study fields, be it through the selection of their thesis topic or their open choice from a wide range of courses and modules offered throughout all Angewandte institutes (free electives).
 
The programme contains five focus study fields:

1. Inter- and transcultural collaboration
2. Envisioning change/applying innovative strategies
3. Radical interventions
4. Applying artistic strategies
5. Managing cross-disciplinary projects

The master thesis consists of the development and realisation of an inter-, cross-, or transdisciplinary research project in a chosen study field using artistic as well as scientific strategies and must be contextualized in one of the five study fields.
 

Qualification Profile of Graduates

Graduates of the programme are trained to function as cultural translators and designers of communication and work processes between diverse disciplinary fields and art, between non-academic and academic groups, as well as between Chinese and European organisations. They will work as experts in transformative innovation processes as well as transcultural translators in Chinese-European cross-disciplinary projects.
 
Graduates will be equipped with

• abilities to discover and investigate topics connected to the grand global challenges and to utilize these for their projects (e.g. research projects, entrepreneurial projects, etc.);
• profound theoretical and practical skills in applying artistic, design, and aesthetic strategies in various kinds of collaborations with different societal agents;
• inter- and transcultural knowledge, experience, and competences in regard to the cultural, political and societal differences and commonalities between the two countries (i.e., continents) in which the two universities are based (Austria/Europe & China/Asia);
• advanced competencies in acquiring and developing adaptivity for change, creative competence, social and emotional intelligence, societal responsibility, and inter- and cross-disciplinary knowledge for strategic planning and communication.