INTRODUCTION
The Eberswalde campus is committed to sustainable research and teaching for over 180 years: The University for Sustainable Development Eberswalde (HNEE) was founded in 1830 as the Forestry Academy. Since the traditional forestry and timber research campus near Berlin reopened its doors in 1992, the university has focused on innovative industries and key sectors such as renewable energy, regional management, sustainable tourism, conservation, sustainable forestry, organic farming, and adaptation to climate change or sustainable economics. The 17 innovative study programs in the four faculties Forest and Environment, Landscape Management and Nature Conversation, Wood Engineering as well as Sustainable Business are all dedicated to the concept of sustainability. In 2010, the university won the European EMAS Award for its exemplary environmental management.
At HNEE, the combination between different disciplines in sustainability research and higher education oriented towards rural areas and the applications of the sustainability concept together with regional and international partners is rather unique on a European level. The HNEE is Germany’s only university which brings together different disciplines that relate to the rural area, i.e. forestry, landscape management and nature conservation, organic agriculture, wood science and technology, regional management and tourism. These attractive, partly unique study programs lure students from all over Germany and abroad to Eberswalde.
The HNEE is per se internationally oriented and sustainability requires thinking and acting in various disciplines and dimensions. In addition, the HNEE draws important impulses and stimuli from tackling global challenges linking local, regional and globally based academic teaching and scientific research with international knowledge and capacity building and international exchange programs. A visible and profound international position in the field of sustainability research is essential in the competition for the best capacities in terms of students or employees. Internationalization at HNEE is a strategic tool for the continuous development of higher education in the future. The principles and the sustainability values of the HNEE explicitly refer to this idea.
Since 2017 the university heads the Erasmus+ project “European-Vietnamese Higher Education Network for Sustainable Forest- and Bio-Economy” under the EACEA funding no 586183-EPP-1-2017-1-DE-EPPKA2-CBHE-JP, and the faculty for forest and environmental studies offers together with the Warsaw University of Life Sciences (SGGW) a bi-national study course on Forest Information technology (FIT) which covers Bioeconomy topics, too.
SECOND YEAR
Eberswalde University for Sustainable Development – Germany (HNEE) offers one of the optional specializations during the third semester in Forest Information Technology (FIT). FIT provides a fundamental understanding of and practical training in environmental-IT, such as geographic information systems, remote sensing, database management, forest ecosystem modeling and management and landscape research. Students learn to solve complex problems based on a deepened understanding of structures, processes and relationships within ecosystems, coupled with a broad spectrum of scientific methods and tools for the collection, analysis, storage, visualization and communication of environmental data. Students are trained in using common forestry- and environment-related software and are empowered to open up new application areas and to develop new application software. These skills are increasingly sought in global job markets as forest data becomes more digitized and traditional operations seek to innovate. Around the globe, forest operations and related process chains are becoming ever more oriented towards, and interlinked with, current and emerging bioeconomy markets.