Educational Sciences
Based on the seven professorships and the respective domains that have been established at the IBW, the institute is characterized by a nationally unique broad yet specialized range of research in the area of adult education and further training. This range has been underpinned by a professorship for Historic-Systematic Pedagogy, while four professorships are devoted to the full range of topics in the field of adult education. The specific research profile of the IBW results from further specializations under these professorships in the areas of political education, education guidance, gender and diversity, vocational and academic further training, European and international adult further education, vocational education and vocational education research, media didactics and knowledge management. This remarkable disciplinary breadth and depth of research areas sets both the UDE and the Faculty of Educational Sciences apart by nationwide comparison.
The research activities of the IBW overall are characterized by high levels of external funding in all areas of its work, by a series of scientific conferences organized by or in cooperation with the IBW during the reporting period, and by the diverse collaborations with different scientific and (semi-)governmental adult education, vocational training and further education institutions in Germany and other European and non-European countries. Detailed information on the acquisition and volume of external funding, further research activities, major scientific publications and national and international networking can be found in the structure report of the IBW and on the websites of the individual departments.
Central to the structural development of the IBW is profiling the professorships which are currently vacant. This will be done by intensifying the European and international aspect of adult education by establishing an (eighth) professorship for adult education with a particular focus on Europe and international comparative adult further education. This is a research area of growing national and international importance and, in addition to opening up new funding opportunities, also defines new fields of research which will become visible priorities for the faculty and the institute.
The second focus, which will shape the research profile of the IBW significantly in the future, is scientific further education in its full scope. Scientific further education (wWB) is a promising area of future research and is to contribute to development of the IBW’s profile priorities under a redefined (extended) professorship: as a subfield of adult education, scientific further education fits systematically into the scientific portfolio of the IBW; it opens up new opportunities for research, especially externally funded research, and is doubtlessly one of the areas in adult further education with the highest growth potential. As serious deficits in research on scientific further education currently exist, in spite of its scientific relevance, the faculty and the University of Duisburg-Essen will both gain another nationally significant and unique mark of distinction by completing the IBW profile in this way.