University of Bonn - Service Learning
Welcome to the Service Learning website of the University of Bonn, where we provide general information about Service Learning as a teaching and learning method and share updates on current projects.
How can academic teaching and learning help address current societal challenges? How can we establish and expand the exchange of methodologies, the transfer of knowledge, as well as collaborative efforts between universities and the community? Service learning plays a key role in answering these questions. Service learning aims to combine academic insights and research with responsible civic engagement. Through this approach, actors from different fields come together, jointly develop new approaches, and cooperatively create an environment in which they can reflect on their own positions and approaches.
Notice
Registration for the interdisciplinary Service Learning courses for the 2026 summer semester is now open! All information about the individual courses can be found in the course descriptions below this notice.Our approach in Bonn
The University of Bonn has made it its mission not only to generate social impact through transdisciplinary research but also to integrate social action and engagement into its teaching. Through Service Learning, the University of Bonn has adapted and piloted an approach designed to enable students and faculty to work together with societal actors on specific, actionable, and current social challenges, problems, or issues. The goal is for students to take an active role within the course: either by regularly supporting civic, non-profit initiatives at cooperating institutions as part of a professional internship, by developing and implementing project ideas for problem-solving, together with actors from relevant social fields and cooperation partners, or by pursuing their own ideas completely independently with the goal of providing support, thereby charting their own innovative path.
Service Learning has been defined at the university as a teaching and learning approach that can be implemented in all suitable courses. The following three key criteria (based on the HBdV quality criteria - Qualitätskriterien HBdV) serve as guidelines and a framework for identifiying Service Learning courses:
Societal challenge
Service-learning courses always aim to address a manageable aspect of a broader societal challenge. This contribution should be designed in such a way that it can be replicated elsewhere. This means that, at the end of the course, the results and experiences are made available to all potentially interested and involved stakeholders, with the goal of facilitating follow-up work or the development of new projects.
Promote independent learning
Service-learning courses enable students to contribute to the project at hand independently, creatively, and with a sense of personal responsibility. To this end, faculty members and other involved individuals provide students with the necessary resources and opportunities.
Collaboration with partners
Service-learning courses always involve collaboration with partners from professional, societal or community-related fields. These partners are experts in a field where concrete work is currently being done to address the challenge selected for the course. They contribute their knowledge, perspectives, and approaches, and facilitate practical applications of the students’ work.
A Teaching and Learning Approach
The university intends to pursue this approach to shaping sustainable higher education in the long term. To this end, the existing modular spaces can initially be better utilized for open, transfer-oriented, and transdisciplinary teaching formats with concrete societal relevance. In addition, the inter-faculty offerings will be further expanded to strengthen transdisciplinary exchange in teaching and gain deeper experience in testing new didactic approaches. In this context, Service Learning serves as a potential blueprint for university development to concretize and expand the potential and framework conditions for open teaching and learning formats in the spirit of a sustainable and competency-oriented design of study and teaching.
Further interest
If you have any questions about Service Learning, are interested in implementing a related teaching project, or would like to learn about past experiences and networking opportunities, the staff at the Bonn Center for Higher Education (BZH) are available to assist you.
Contact
Bonn Centre for Higher Education (BZH)
The Service Learning approach is part of the Bonn Center for University Teaching. If you have any questions regarding general issues related to university development, professional development for faculty members, or current strategic projects, please feel free to contact our colleagues.