TU Ilmenau
This year, the research group for Public Relations & Communication of Technology (PRTK) is starting three projects with a total of over 5 million euros in funding from the German Research Foundation (DFG), the Free State of Thuringia and the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD). These are interdisciplinary cooperations with, among others, the Thuringian Innovation Centre for Mobility (ThIMo), various research groups of the TU Ilmenau and the Federal Institute for Risk Assessment (BfR). PRTK itself receives approx. 10% of the total funding and is involved as a co-applicant with important subprojects. Thus, the head of the research group Dr. Andreas Schwarz and his team follow the research and teaching strategy developed since taking over the research group three years ago, with which innovative communication research at the interface of engineering sciences and communication practice is to be realized.
The DFG project "Deciphering the pandemic sphere" comparatively analyses how effectively governments, health care institutions and the media in Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, the United Kingdom and the USA have informed their citizens about COVID-19 and encouraged them to adopt self-protective behaviour. As a sub-project, the research group PRTK is responsible for, among other things, the analysis of international media coverage of the COVID pandemic and the crisis management of governments. The project is funded by the DFG with about €1.5 million over three years and includes four research groups of the TU Ilmenau and six internationally leading experts in risk and health communication as well as the Federal Institute for Risk Assessment as project partners.
Together with four other research groups at TU Ilmenau and the Thuringian Innovation Center for Mobility (ThiMo), the research group PRTK is also devoting itself to automated driving in local public transport in the joint project KREATÖR. The tasks of the research group include the sociological analysis of risk perception and public acceptance as well as the conception of public relations and strategic technology and science communication. This is done in conjunction with the so-called Campus Bus Project, in which automated shuttle buses are to transport passengers from Ilmenau to the campus of the TU Ilmenau. The KREATÖR project is funded by the Thuringian Ministry of Economy, Science and Digital Society with a total of €2 million until the end of 2023.
In addition, the research group PRTK is involved in the VEDIAS project of the TU Ilmenau together with the other research groups of the IfMK. Within the framework of the project, three internationally oriented master's degree courses are being completely digitized so that they can be studied without presence. For this purpose, the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF), together with the DAAD, has provided around eight million euros for 18 universities over the next few years. In addition to innovative online courses, social virtual reality applications are planned that will allow students to meet in virtual rooms and experience student interaction alongside teaching. For the purely digital curriculum of our Master's program "Media and Communication Science", our research group will deliver seminars on the topics of risk and crisis communication as well as international public relations.