Last week, Professor Dov Greenbaum visited the University of Innsbruck. Prof. Greenbaum currently teaches law at the Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya in Israel. He is the Director of the Zvi Meitar Institute for Legal Implications of Emerging Technologies.
Concurrently, he is also a researcher in the department of Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry at Yale University. Prof. Greenbaum has degrees and post-doctoral fellowships from Yeshiva University, Yale University, University of California, Berkeley, ETH Zurich and Stanford University. In addition to his academic affiliation and training, he is also an intellectual property attorney (California & USPTO), with experience in the fields of biopharmaceutical litigation, and Hi-Tech patent drafting and prosecution, including drafting in the fields of robotics, software, computer hardware and defense.

On Wednesday, October 30, 2019, Prof. Greenbaum gave a guest lecture on "International Relations as seen through the lens of Space Research and Space Law" at the University of Innsbruck.
AIANI and the Department of Political Science at the University of Innsbruck were delighted to have Prof. Greenbaum here in Innsbruck and is looking forward to welcome him here again soon!

In 2019, the University of Innsbruck is celebrating its 350th anniversary. October 15 marks the historic founding day of the University of Innsbruck in 1669 and this year, it was celebrated during a full week of events.
Together with the city of Innsbruck and the state of Tyrol, the university celebrated its birthday with multiple festivities including a rector’s reception, a ceremony in the Tiroler Landestheater, a special university ball, a presentation of the newly written history of the university, exhibitions, etc.

It was our great pleasure to welcome a good number of guests from our Israeli partner institutions here in Innsbruck during this past week. Some fruitful meetings and discussions about future cooperations were held, but there was also time to get together and celebrate the birthday of the University of Innsbruck!

From 23-27 September 2019, the EAIE Conference for International Higher Education took place in Helsinki. AIANI participated at this event, where 6200 higher education professionals from 95 countries met. It was the largest annual EAIE conference to date.
Many of our Israeli colleagues were present as well and lots of fruitful meetings and discussions were held.

Every summer the Intensive German Language Courses, organized by the Language Centre at the University of Innsbruck, take place in July and August. Also this year, four students from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem came to Innsbruck to learn and improve their German language skills.
With lessons in the morning and all sorts of different activities in the afternoon, the 3-week course is a great opportunity to learn and practice German and get to know the people and culture of Tyrol.

The students from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem received a scholarship from the University of Innsbruck that covered the course fees as well as the accommodation costs.

AIANI organized a special visit to the Jewish Community for Tyrol and Vorarlberg for the students, where the honorary president Dr. Esther Fritsch gave a tour for the group and told them about the history of the community and the synagogue in Innsbruck. Afterwards, the group met for a little get-together with students from the University of Innsbruck.
On another day they visited the exhibition “Architecture Speaks: The Language of MVRDV” at the Tyrolean architecture center “aut. architektur und Tirol” in the Adambräu building in Innsbruck. Following the tour, AIANI took them to the “Café Central” to enjoy some traditional “Sachertorte” and coffee.

AIANI was happy to have these wonderful students here in Innsbruck and wishes them all the best for their future. It would be great to welcome them back soon!

From June 23-24, 2019, representatives of the Israeli Ministry of Education and the non-profit organization Givat Haviva visited the University of Innsbruck. On Sunday night they went to the benefit concert of the Uni-Orchester and enjoyed a wonderful muscial evening.

The following day they visited the Unit for Peace and Conflict Studies at the Grillhof Education Center, where Dr. Josefina Echavarría Alvarez and Dr. Noah Taylor gave a very good insight into the institution. The tour and presentation  at the Grillhof Education Center was followed by a joint lunch.
Later that day they met Rector Tilmann Märk, as well as Prof. Ivo Hajnal, Prof. Dirk Rupnow, Prof. Andreas Oberprantacher, Prof. Ulrike Jessner-Schmid and Dr. Barbara Tasser for interesting discussions.

AIANI was delighted to have them here in Innsbruck!

In May 2019, Prof. Alon Segev from the Loyola University Chicago (USA) visited the University of Innsbruck for the second time. He was invited by Prof. Andreas Oberprantacher from the Department of Philosophy to teach a seminar on the “Philosophy of Religion”.

Prof. Segev taught the seminar “Religionsphilosophie: Universalismus und Partikularismus”, which was aimed to give students an overview of significant religious philosophical and theological positions on universalism and particularism in the context of Christianity and Judaism. In the seminar a special focus was put on the examination of well-known religious-philosophical and theological texts of modernity, written by prominent theologians of various traditions and denominations.

Prof. Segev authored several books including “Thinking and Killing” in 2013 and “Political Readings of Descartes in Continental Thought” in 2019. Moreover, he is also a foremost expert in philosophy of religion and hence, he was able to make an important contribution to the research area “Practical Philosophy” at the University of Innsbruck.
Prof. Andreas Oberprantacher from the Department of Philosophy, Prof. Wolfgang Palaver from the Department of Systematic Theology, as well as a good number of interested students, were delighted to have Prof. Alon Segev as a lecturer at the University of Innsbruck.
AIANI was happy to help finance his stay here in Innsbruck!

Last week, the second Hackathon of the University of Innsbruck and the Holon Institute of Technology (Israel) took place at the University of Innsbruck. For four days, four interdisciplinary groups of students from Israel and Innsbruck were working together on prototypes, which enable children with and without disabilities to play together. The FabLab Innsbruck supported the students, which came from various backgrounds: computer Science, Industrial Design, Psychology, Educational Science etc.
In only four days they were able to create very impressive results: a robot that dances together with the children, an “intelligent” ball with which the children can learn the different colors, a kaleidoscope that only works if two kids use it together and music instruments that allow the kids to conduct their own band.
By playing together and observing the kids reaction to the ideas, the students found out what the children liked and what they did not like. They worked hard to improve their innovative, technically advanced projects and were able to present the results and prototypes of the play objects to the children and the public.
The second LFUI-HIT Hackathon was a great success and we are looking forward to the next collaboration between the two institutions!
The project was generously supported by the “Förderkreis 1669 - Wissenschafft Gesellschaft” of the University of Innsbruck and by HIT.

From May 20 until May 24 2019, two staff members from the Faculty of Social Sciences at the Tel Aviv University in Israel came to the University of Innsbruck via the Erasmus+ Staff Training Mobility Program. Both were able to gather valuable and constructive insights into the work of several departments at the University of Innsbruck. Furthermore, they visited the “Schülertag” for High School students and the Business and Social Science campus. Besides their full schedule, they also had time for some sightseeing in Innsbruck.

AIANI was happy to welcome them here in Innsbruck! We hope that they took many good memories back to their home institution.

In May 2019, Prof. Liat Yakhnich, Head of the Department of Youth Development at Beit Berl College in Israel, visited the University of Innsbruck for an “Erasmus+ Staff Teaching” stay. She was invited by Univ.-Prof. Dr. Alfred Berger from the Department of Educational Sciences.
Prof. Liat Yakhnich is working as a Senior Lecturer at the Department of Criminology at Beit Berl College in Israel. Her research interests include: parenting in cultural transition, immigrant families and youth, cultural identity and substance abuse and addiction. Beyond academic activity, she works with parents and families and is involved in professional training in the fields of cultural sensitive social work and immigrant youth at risk.
 
During her stay, Prof. Yakhnich gave a guest lecture on “Problems of Adaption of Immigrant Youth in Israel and its Consequences for Social Work”. In her talk, Prof. Yakhnich put focus on problems in adaption of immigrant youth in Israel, specifically substance abuse and delinquency. She presented findings from two qualitative studies and introduced a pilot program aimed at assisting and supporting immigrant families with youth at risk. Although the program is implemented in a particular social context, it offers ideas about assisting immigrant parents regardless of origin, ethnicity, and specific social circumstances. In the first study, Prof. Yakhnich examined the extent to which immigration-related stressors are associated with delinquent behavior of immigrant adolescents from the Former Soviet Union. The second study explored the trajectories of drug abuse and of addiction development among immigrant users.
 
AIANI and the Department of Educational Sciences of the University of Innsbruck were delighted to have Prof. Liat Yakhnich as a guest here in Innsbruck and are looking forward to welcoming her again soon.
Prof. Yakhnich’s stay was co-financed by the Erasmus+ Mobility Program.

On Thursday, April 4 2019, Prof. Dr. Ilya A. Altman gave a guest lecture at the University of Innsbruck. The topic of the lecture was “Researching and remembering the Holocaust in contemporary Russia”.
 
Prof. Altman is a Russian historian and co-founder, as well as co-chairman of the Russian Research and Educational Holocaust Center in Moscow. Prof. Altman is also teaching at the Russian State University for the Humanities in Moscow, which is a partner university of the University of Innsbruck.
Furthermore, he is the author of over 300 publications on the history of the Holocaust and the Eastern Front.  Many of these have been published in the United States, Israel and Western Europe. Moreover, Ilya Altman is a member of the International Council of the Austrian Service Abroad.
 
In his talk, Prof. Altman discussed the Holocaust research in Russia in general and how the theme of the Shoah is currently taught in Russian schools. He also talked about the international cooperation in the field of Holocaust research and its future perspectives, taking Austria as an example. Prof. Altman encouraged the audience to visit the exhibition "Holocaust: Extermination, Liberation, Rescue", which is shown at the University of Innsbruck (Bruno-Sander-Haus, Innrain 52f, EG, Innsbruck) from April 6 until May 3, 2019. This travelling exhibition was previously shown in Russia, Argentina, Germany, France, Israel, the Czech Republic, Uruguay and the USA. Recently it was also shown at the United Nations headquarters, the UNESCO, the Council of Europe, and at the Austrian Parliament.
 
Prof. Altman’s visit to the University of Innsbruck was organized by the Department of History and European Ethnology of the University of Innsbruck, in cooperation with the Department of Contemporary History, the Universitäts- und Landesbibliothek of Tyrol, the Russlandzentrum of the University of Innsbruck and AIANI.