eHealth aCademic cOoperatioN syNergy projECT (Health-CONNECT)

MA23 – Call 22-05: Internationalization of Teaching at Vienna’s Universities of Applied Sciences

The Health-CONNECT project aims to strengthen competencies in the intersection of the multidisciplinary and future-oriented subject area of “eHealth” at the UAS Technikum. This will be made possible above all by an internationalization strategy that is to be developed and expanded. In doing so, the curricula, learning objectives and contents of study programs at the UAS Technikum Wien dealing with this topic will be increasingly synchronized with those of partner universities in Portugal (Universidade de Tras-os-Montes e Alto Douro, Vila Real) and Germany (Friedrich Schiller University, Jena). The competence and topic-oriented representation by teachers and researchers of the UAS Technikum Wien will be the focus of the project implementation. The study programs involved, which are located at 2 institutes of the UAS Technikum Wien and are closely linked to the interdisciplinary research focus “Secure Services, eHealth & Mobility”, will be subjected to increased internationalization and closer coordination through this project in order to gain synergistic effects in education in the field of eHealth.

The project should enable a sustainable integration of teacher and student mobility in the respective curriculum, support the expansion of individual intercultural competencies and experiences and at the same time internationalize the learning objectives and content. The project Health-CONNECT will analyze 1 Bachelor’s and 4 Master’s degree programs at the UAS Technikum Wien, which focus on eHealth, and will compare the learning objectives and contents as well as the possibilities for mobility with the partner universities and integrate them as examples into the respective curriculum. This also includes the possibilities to take up a further academic career in this environment (e.g. BSc in Jena, MSc in Vienna, PhD in Vila Real). Furthermore, an example of an implementation is planned by piloting the identified measures for internationalization and their evaluation. As the topic of eHealth is partly perceived as highly abstract, annual “eHealth Summer Schools” are planned on a rotating basis at the participating universities. In this way, the contents and different fields of knowledge of the topic can be presented in a networked and “accessible” manner and possible inhibition thresholds and prejudices on the topic of “technology and health” can be addressed and reduced.

The project Health-CONNECT will therefore enable a strengthening of the education and competence location Vienna through a cooperative and increasingly internationalized teaching opportunity in the field of eHealth at the UAS Technikum Wien.