Don’t want to miss any updates? We’d be happy to add you to our newsletter—just send a quick email to studium-generale(at)hs-pforzheim(dot)de!
Note to our students: With appropriate reflection and documentation, attendance at the Studium Generale lectures (excluding the concert) can count toward up to 3 ethics credits on your Ethics Certificate. You can find more information here.
Best regards
, Your STUDIUM GENERALE TEAM
Prof. Dr. Frauke Sander & Prof. Dr. Nadine Walter
Who Are “We”? On Migration, Identity, and the Future of Living
Together
Our society faces many challenges: wars and humanitarian crises with direct repercussions for Europe, rising economic inequality, rising prices and inflation, digitalization and the rise of AI, a deepening climate crisis, the onset of demographic change, and a global decline in democracy that is also evident at home. The increasing pluralization and opening up of society through refugee flows and migration has not been without tensions and conflicts. Social conflicts between newcomers and those who have been here longer appear to be on the rise, and the lines between supporters and skeptics of migration seem to be hardening. Media coverage is often marked by heated debates and emotional rhetoric on both sides.
However, these should not necessarily be interpreted as signs that the pluralistic, open society has failed, according to the thesis of the lecture. He argues that debate and social conflicts should be viewed as the “growing pains of ‘us’”—as painful symptoms of the process by which social groups of different social and ethnic backgrounds negotiate and draw closer together. Drawing a line between “us” and “the others” need not lead to exclusion and devaluation, as long as the humanity and integrity of each and every individual remain at the center. But who is the “we,” and who are “the others”? Who belongs, and who does not? How can a broader “we” be developed in a diverse society, and what role does (higher) education play in this? The lecture addresses these and other questions.
Judith Kohlenberger is the director of the Research Institute for Migration and Refugee Studies and Management (FORM),
Vienna University of Economics and Business (WU). Photo: Christian Lendl.
Judith Kohlenberger is a sociologist with a habilitation. She heads the Research Institute for Migration and Refugee Research and Management (FORM) at the Vienna University of Economics and Business (WU), is an Affiliate Policy Fellow at the Jacques Delors Center in Berlin, and an Associated Researcher at the Einstein Center Digital Future. She is co-editor of the Journal of Refugee and Displacement Research, a member of the City of Vienna’s Integration Council, and host of the podcast “Aufnahmebereit.” Her book *Das Fluchtparadox* (2022) was named Austrian Academic Book of the Year in 2023 and was nominated for the German Nonfiction Prize. Her latest book, *Migrationspanik*, was published in 2025.
Is Germany Prepared for Defense? What the Upheaval in Security Policy Means for the Bundeswehr
The past few years have brought massive changes for Germany and Europe—mostly in the form of surprises and shocks that have shaken long-held certainties and jeopardized familiar stability. Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022—in violation of international law—the election of Donald Trump, Vice President J.D. Vance at the 2025 Munich Security Conference, Hamas’s widespread terrorist attacks on Israel and the ensuing Gaza War of 2023–25, as well as the Iran War of 2026—all of these are events with grave implications for security in Germany and Europe. They also have massive consequences for the security institutions within NATO and the EU, as well as for the Federal Republic of Germany’s security policy instruments, particularly the Bundeswehr. The Bundeswehr must now prepare for the possibility of war in Europe and, under significant time pressure, establish realistic combat and defense capabilities. However, focusing solely on immediate threat defense is not enough; rather, preparation for the challenges and risks of the future is also necessary. In the military sphere in particular, rapid technological and conceptual changes are currently shaping developments. Keeping pace here—and possibly even taking the lead—could determine success or defeat in the future. The methods of strategic foresight and futures studies can make a significant contribution to addressing risks and threats in the military domain that are already apparent today. This is not about making predictions, but rather about identifying opportunities and courses of action, as well as recognizing relevant trends for the battlefield of the future at an early stage. The presentation explores the question of how the Bundeswehr must be positioned today to meet the changing challenges of security policy.
Dr. Ralf Otte is an engineer and has been a professor of Industrial Automation and Artificial Intelligence at Ulm University of Applied Sciences since 2015. He has been working in the field of AI for more than three decades, having first become fascinated by neural networks in the early 1990s. From 1992 to 2004, he worked in the Data Mining Center and Business Intelligence division of an international corporation; subsequently, from 2005 to 2015, he served as managing director of a medium-sized Swiss company. Otte is the author of numerous technical and non-fiction books on artificial intelligence. His textbook “AI for Dummies” will be published in its third edition in 2026 and is one of the best-selling AI introductions in the German-speaking world. In addition to his teaching activities, he is deeply involved in research. A key focus of his work is on so-called “fourth-wave AI,” particularly on the implementation of energy-efficient AI architectures on photonic computers.
The Silent Death of Nature—How Species Extinction Threatens
Our Future
With the current focus on the climate crisis, we are overlooking the existential threat to nature posed in particular by species loss. Yet biodiversity is our life insurance, because it also ensures resilient habitats.
In his latest book, *The Silent Death of Nature: How We Can Save Biodiversity and Ourselves*, Prof. Glaubrecht argues that by focusing solely on the climate crisis, we are overlooking the existential threat posed by species extinction—yet both are vital to our survival: species conservation and climate protection.
The decline in species populations is gradual, while the climate crisis—with its extreme weather events—is impossible to ignore, which is why it is a priority, even in science and politics. Yet globally, we have lost, for example, two-thirds of insect biomass in recent decades and are seeing demographic declines of a similar magnitude in many other animal populations. The problem here is not the extinction of individual species, but the dramatic decline in biodiversity as a whole.
As with climate protection, three levels of action are required for species conservation: policymakers must set guidelines; businesses—and agriculture in particular—must shift their focus; and we as individuals must change our behavior. In the wake of biodiversity reporting, some companies have already taken action, but political guidelines are neither being established nor adhered to; protected areas remain isolated pockets, and our food security is increasingly at risk. Ultimately, however, we owe our very livelihood to functioning ecosystems and an intact natural world.
Dr. Matthias Glaubrecht is a professor of animal biodiversity at the University of Hamburg and an author.
Photo: UHH/Sebastian Engels.
Matthias Glaubrecht is an evolutionary biologist, biosystematician, and historian of science. As a professor of animal biodiversity at the University of Hamburg, he is also responsible at the Leibniz Institute for the Analysis of Biodiversity Change for the development of a new natural history museum called the “Evolutioneum” in Hamburg.
He has also been an award-winning journalist for many years and is the author of, among other works, the *Spiegel* bestseller *Das Ende der Evolution* (*The End of Evolution*). In 2023, he was honored by the Academy of Language and Literature with the prestigious Sigmund Freud Prize for scientific prose.
History of the STUDIUM GENERALE
Since 1985, Pforzheim University has been inviting students, professors, staff, and interested guests from the city and the surrounding region to participate in a challenging STUDIUM GENERALE program. The speakers are renowned scholars, entrepreneurs, politicians, artists, and individuals who have achieved extraordinary things. Hundreds of interested listeners repeatedly take advantage of this opportunity to engage with a wide variety of topics, broaden their horizons, learn new, inspiring, and sometimes even thought-provoking ideas, and get a close-up look at fascinating personalities. Since October 2020, all lectures have been available via live stream on the STUDIUM GENERALE YouTube channel, allowing you to watch them from the comfort of your home or anywhere else, and the recordings remain available for about four weeks afterward. You are all cordially invited to the STUDIUM GENERALE at your university!
The academic directors are Professors Dr. Frauke Sander and Dr. Nadine Walter.
If you’d like to receive regular updates on our STUDIUM GENERALE program, please send an email to the Studium Generale team to subscribe to the newsletter.
Contact the Studium Generale Team
