The strategy is as simple as it is ingenious: the aim is to use the island’s beauty and climate to attract retired professors to Tenerife, so that they might stay on for a few more years and pass on their knowledge and experience to students from all over the world. Thanks to this plan, the management of the new university is succeeding in persuading more and more people to come to Tenerife to study and undertake further education.
„Humboldt Cosmos Multiversity“
The „Humboldt Cosmos Multiversity“ owes its name to the polymath Alexander von Humboldt, who spent a week conducting research on the Canary Island more than 200 years ago. His scientific studies are still cited in many places today, and Humboldt’s presence is felt throughout the island. When it came to naming the university, the choice was therefore an obvious one.
The educational institution was founded in 2012 by Günter Koch, a professor of computer science, in Tacoronte in the north of Tenerife. Koch, who headed the Austrian Seibersdorf Research Centre from 1998 to 2003, was commissioned to do so by the „New Club of Paris“, an association of economists and entrepreneurs.
HCM: Multiversity in Tenerife
The term ‚multiversity‘ originates from the USA and is intended to symbolise the diversity of opportunities on offer. And this diversity is also reflected in the way knowledge is imparted at Humboldt University: on the one hand, students can study there in the traditional sense. However, a second avenue for knowledge transfer is provided through continuing professional development courses.
Companies can arrange for their staff to receive targeted training. According to the university itself, however, the aim is not simply to deliver a few lectures and perhaps require participants to give presentations. Rather, alongside traditional training methods, participants are to work on case studies and other in-depth analyses and tools. In this way, Humboldt Multiversity aims to set itself apart from other training institutions.
Humboldt University focuses on continuing professional development for the private sector
And in this regard, whether in traditional degree programmes or in continuing professional development, no limits are to be set. Disciplines are to be examined in their entirety. To this end, thematic areas are explored by various professors from a wide range of fields. In this way, students are to be offered a more comprehensive understanding of a subject area than would be possible at other educational institutions.
Nevertheless, the Humboldt Multiversity on Tenerife does not see itself as a competitor to traditional universities, but rather as a link between universities and the private sector. To this end, shortly after the HCM was founded, experts from across Europe met to discuss holistic models of teaching and to explore further opportunities for knowledge transfer.
Further information on the Tenerife University
Age is set to become a key area of teaching at the university. According to the management, this is admittedly a rather dry topic, but one that society cannot afford to ignore. For this reason, the background to and implications of demographic change are to be examined in great detail. Given the university’s background and its approach to recruiting teaching staff, this is a perfectly logical approach.
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