The event kicked off with the presentation of the Teaching Award for Innovative and Outstanding Teaching and the Teaching Award for Education for Sustainable Development (ESD). A total of 60 lecturers were nominated for the teaching award and there were eleven submissions for the ESD award. PPÖ and Management student Moritz Ehrenreich moderated the award ceremony and emphasized that the often expressed perception that "everything was better in the past" was clearly refuted by the large number of current innovative teaching projects.

The teaching award for innovative and outstanding teaching went to Lennart Hein, assistant doctor at the pediatric clinic at Dortmund Hospital. He was recognized for his special commitment to clinical-practical training in paediatrics. Through practical and intensive supervision in the skills lab and examination course, he enables students to gain their own clinical experience at an early stage and specifically strengthens their professional and communicative confidence.

The teaching awards for education for sustainable development recognized several projects:

• In the Faculty of Business and Society, the "[tra:ce] Wuppertal Research Seminar" by Prof. Dr. Joscha Wullweber and Dr. Sonja Knobbe received the award. The course involves students in real research projects on global climate strategies and energy transformations and promotes sustainability-related skills.
• In the Faculty of Health, Prof. Dr. Jan Philipp Röer, Chair of General Psychology, received the award for the course "Make it a better place: Small impulses for our campus". Based on nudge theory, students develop concrete approaches for sustainable behavioral changes in everyday life.
• In the Studium fundamentale, Manfred Fiedler, research assistant at the Junior Professorship for Innovative and Digital Forms of Teaching and Learning in Multiprofessional Healthcare, received the award for the seminar "Broadening Perspectives on Climate and Health through Outdoor Education". The concept uses experience-based learning to make connections between the environment and health directly understandable.

Three award winners presented their projects digitally or on site and gave insights into their teaching concepts.

In the afternoon, a bar camp opened up the space for self-initiated topics. Without a fixed program, but with all the more commitment, the participants shaped the exchange themselves. Questions, experiences and ideas relating to teaching and the further development of the model university were discussed in small groups.

Looking ahead together

At the end, key impressions of the day were summarized: What do we take away? What questions remain unanswered? And what impulses can shape teaching at UW/H in the future?

Teaching Day 2026 showed once again: The model university is not a finished concept, but an ongoing process - driven by the willingness to reflect on teaching together, to think ahead and to actively shape it.