This year's symposium, which was attended by over 400 FH students from various degree programmes and departments, was held under the motto "Empowerment and Democratisation". A full programme with top speakers awaited the Master's students on Friday, 20.10. and Saturday, 21.10. at the 15th interdisciplinary Symposium Ethics & Sustainability.
In 2009, the degree programmes and the rectorate of FH Salzburg launched the interdisciplinary symposium for all Master's students. The aim was and still is to facilitate an interdisciplinary exchange on social issues and to network students across departments and degree programmes. Over the past 15 years, topics have been examined from a wide variety of perspectives, including justice, scarcity of resources, ethical aspects of nutrition, artificial intelligence and intergenerational equity.
Empowerment and Democratisation
The motto of this year's symposium was "Empowerment & Democratisation". Markus Pausch, Senior Researcher at the Department of Applied Social Sciences at the Salzburg University of Applied Sciences, kicked off with the topic "What is the future of democracy in the 21st century? Scientist Zoe Lefkofridi, Professor of Politics & Gender, Diversity & Equality at the University of Salzburg, gave input on "Empowered by Democratization? Gender Equality as the Fundament of Democracy".
In the following tracks in English and German, these topics were examined in presentations and a concluding panel discussion: Democratisation of Technology and Science; Diversity in Tech; Trust in Social and Political Institutions; Democracy Education for and in Austrian Schools; Diversity in Mobility Planning; Global Quality of Democracy and Tourism.
Exchange and networking
An important part of the symposium is an interdisciplinary workshop with supervisors from the Salzburg University of Applied Sciences - here the students design a poster together with their fellow students from all departments after discussing workshop questions and deepening the presentations.
Lena Kainbrecht, a Master's student, summarises her impressions:
"For me, the Symposium on Ethics and Sustainability opened up new perspectives on the topic of empowerment & democratisation and highlighted problems that I had previously perceived as everyday and 'normal'. I found the lecture on diversity in mobility planning particularly exciting, as in my opinion diversity is not taken into account in far too many areas of life. As a Master's student in Design and Product Management, the symposium has spurred me on to pay specific attention to diversity and equality in my future projects."
Photos: © FH Salzburg/wildbild
The format "Ethics & Sustainability" is an interdisciplinary symposium for students of the FH Salzburg. The event, organised by the Rectorate and the degree programmes of the FH Salzburg, has been held annually for 15 years with the aim of facilitating an interdisciplinary exchange on social issues and networking students across departments and degree programmes. 2021 the„Change.Climate.Resilience“ format was also launched, aimed at Bachelor students.