Project Innovation Hub (PIH) is an online collaborative learning platform funded by DAAD to let students from MENA (Middle East and North Africa) crisis regions participate in higher education and research in Germany. The Technical University of Brandenburg (TH-Brandenburg) is hosting this project.

The idea is that TH-Brandenburg and other Universities of Applied Sciences open their curricular study courses and research projects to students from MENA regions and let them study as “virtual students” from abroad. The background of this is that many students from this region are not able to come to Germany as exchange students due to financial reasons or because their country is in a political conflict or crisis and traveling abroad is not possible or visas might not be issued. Especially in these difficult times higher education and participation in international projects in higher education is very important.

Students from MENA partner Universities have the opportunity to enroll in courses of the Student Academy and participate online via our external Moodle platform and by using our local conference Tool Big Blue Button (BBB) to join our courses. After successful submission at the end of lecture times participants receive a Certificate of Participation and in case of enrollment at a German Partner university as “Virtual Income” a Transcript of Records.

Teachers from MENA partner Universities can enroll for our further educational courses at the Teacher Academy and obtain a certificate from a German partner University.

One time a year selected participants are invited to a physical Project Week at one of our partner Universities. Here students meet for a Workshop and the Student Conference. Teachers discuss the schedule of the Student Academy, Research, and organizational issues at the Teacher Conference.

To see all participating universities please check Partners.

The joint topic of our Student Academy is “Digitalization of Cultural Heritage”. All projects are carried out with non-university partners such as the Jordan Museum, the Directorate of Antiquities and Heritage in Erbil, and UNESCO in Germany and in Sudan is our partner. The cooperation intends to provide concrete solutions for digitalization on historical sites in danger. We provide support in digitalization for scientific and civil purposes on the site, we help to protect cultural treasures in a way to build digital twins, store important data and papers in data bases, and make them accessible to the public.

Our participants learn the workflow of latest technologies in photogrammetry, laser-scanning and 3D-modelling.