Tübingen president, vice president visit Carolina, affirm strategic partnership

Karla Pollmann, president of Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen, visited UNC-Chapel Hill in February. Her visit, which brought together faculty and leaders from across campus, strengthened and celebrated ties between the universities.

The strategic partnership between Tübingen and UNC-Chapel Hill is recognized globally — including by the 2024 IIE Heiskell Award for Strategic Partnerships — as an innovative model for international collaboration in higher education. The award recognizes their recent collaboration in data science, supported through a joint seed fund.

“UNC-Chapel Hill is [Tübingen’s] closest partner in the United States,” Pollmann said. “The award adds glamor to an already terrific partnership and terrific cooperation. Together, we will continue finding solutions to current and future challenges in our globalized society.”

In 2023, Carolina administrators, faculty and staff traveled to Tübingen after Pollmann had become Tübingen’s president. This year, Pollmann and Monique Scheer, Tübingen’s vice president for international affairs and diversity, met with Chancellor Lee H. Roberts and Barbara Stephenson, Carolina’s vice provost for global affairs and chief global officer. Together, they reflected on the value both institutions gain by working together, as well as new areas for joint research.

UNC Global Affairs hosted a reception for faculty, staff, students and administrators involved in the partnership in the FedEx Global Education Center. Chris Clemens, Carolina’s provost and chief academic officer, spoke of the universities’ shared history, which began with a student exchange in 1986 and has grown to encompass a broad range of disciplines. He acknowledged the Center for European Studies, the School of Law and the Department of Germanic and Slavic Languages and Literatures, as well as 20 other departments at Carolina that engage with Tübingen through study abroad, collaborative research and joint programs. Pollmann and Scheer spent time with Tübingen law students who were at Carolina participating in an annual exchange between the two universities.

During the visit, Carolina and Tübingen explored their shared focus on library collaboration, particularly in the realm of sustainable scholarship and open access, as well as the evolving use of library spaces in a digital-first world. Maria Estorino, vice provost for University Libraries and university librarian at Carolina, welcomed the delegation for a tour of UNC-Chapel Hill’s libraries and key collections. The tour started at Wilson Library, named for Louis Wilson, who was a professor of German. Librarians at Carolina and Tübingen recently began sharing best practices as well.

“We aim to engage more fully with society, making relevant, academically informed contributions to current debates and embracing new forms of science, communication and outreach. We particularly appreciate UNC-Chapel Hill’s motto of being passionately public, which includes the commitment of being accessible and affordable to the people of North Carolina,” Pollmann said.

In 2022, Carolina and Tübingen committed to investing in joint research collaboration with a shared vision of addressing urgent challenges of using emerging technologies for the benefit of democratic societies. Tübingen’s clusters of excellence in machine learning and AI, as well as an interdisciplinary focus on the social impact of data science, have made for an ideal partnership with Carolina’s School of Data Science and Society. Part of this commitment includes the Joint Seed Fund for Collaborations in Data Science, which to date, has supported 15 projects focused on the applications and impacts of data on democratic societies.

“These seed fund initiatives enable us to further grow in these challenging and fast-changing research areas, and further sharpen our universities’ research profiles,” Pollmann said.

Pollmann and Scheer met with several Carolina faculty members who have received funding for projects through the seed fund. The faculty shared that the fund — rooted in the longevity and interconnectedness of this partnership — makes it easier to make connections and collaborate in new areas. Leadership at both institutions is evaluating the impact of the awards to date and committed to discuss future opportunities for funding.

“Visits like this one from President Pollmann and Vice President Scheer remind us how much we can accomplish — and have accomplished — together,” Stephenson said. “Carolina is committed to this partnership, and we are excited about our future.”