Strengthen AI competences at higher education institutions
The AI Campus supports universities in systematically building up AI competences in study programmes, teaching and administration. A nationwide consortium led by Stifterverband is developing learning opportunities for all status groups at universities. The Federal Ministry for Research, Technology and Space is funding the project “Strengthening AI competences at universities” from January 2026 to March 2029 with around 6.9 million euros.
With the EU AI Act, new requirements for the competent and responsible use of Artificial Intelligence in higher education have become binding. The project “Strengthening AI competences at higher education institutions” addresses these requirements and creates nationwide available offerings from higher education institutions for higher education institutions in Germany.
Building on the AI Campus, established as a non-profit learning platform, open educational resources (OER) and open education technologies (open source) are being made available to higher education institutions and their stakeholder groups. A cross-state consortium is developing scalable offerings for the targeted qualification of students, teaching staff and employees. The Federal Ministry of Research, Technology and Space (BMFTR) supports the initiative as part of the Hightech Agenda Germany.
We have compiled our offerings for higher education institutions on a dedicated overview page .
The consortium project “Strengthening AI competences at higher education institutions” is coordinated by the Stifterverband and implemented jointly with eight higher education and research partners. A key focus of the partners is on institutional and cross-state synergies and strategic course-setting in order to embed AI competences sustainably in studies, teaching and administration.
In addition to the core consortium partners, interested higher education institutions have the opportunity to get involved as associated partners and actively support the project goals. All information on applying can be found in the infosheet for associated partnerships. The consortium admits new associated partners every six months at the start of the semester. The deadline for submitting a Letter of Intent for admission for the summer semester 2027 is 15 March 2027.
Stifterverband, through the AI Campus office, takes on the management and coordination of the joint project. It coordinates collaboration with partners, the development of needs-based learning opportunities, as well as their quality assurance and transfer into relevant communities.
RWTH Aachen is working on the continuous further development and production of course offerings for students and teaching staff. In addition, it is testing integration scenarios for in-person courses, documenting good practices and providing technical support for connecting AI tools to the AI Campus, for example through single sign-on, learning assistants and chatbots.
Humboldt University of Berlin promotes the development of AI competences in studies, teaching and administration by further developing existing courses and creating new learning opportunities. In doing so, it takes legal requirements such as the EU AI Act into account and supports the academic reflection and evaluation of the project activities.
The German Research Centre for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI) develops courses and materials on educational technologies and AI co-determination. It also supports the integration of AI functionalities into the Moodle LMS, develops AI-supported learning assistants and supports transfer and evaluation.
Baden-Württemberg Cooperative State University develops and updates AI competence courses for students, lecturers and staff on the basis of the AI Campus. In addition, it is expanding the “Academic Writing with AI” offering, developing further training measures for specific AI use cases and expanding the individual AI competence audit.
Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf is strengthening the development of AI competences in degree programmes, teaching and continuing education through the curricular integration of foundation courses and supplementary offerings. It also develops flexibly reusable materials and contributes to the development of standards and workflows for open educational resources.
The FernUniversität in Hagen identifies and integrates needs-based learning opportunities into its study programmes and advises other NRW universities on the use of AI Campus offerings. In addition, it is responsible for the provision, maintenance and further development of the AI Campus Moodle instances, promotes knowledge transfer with innovative community formats and develops the AI Campus Hub NRW as a central point of contact.
The Technical University of Munich is developing a content-related and methodological framework to expand its existing offering and is defining a model module as the basis for new teaching formats. In addition, it is developing a modular assessment concept, testing and evaluating the modules, and publishing them as open educational resources.
Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen is developing transdisciplinary future skills courses for students and teaching staff with a focus on AI competences and integrating them into the AI Campus. In addition, it is further developing existing learning opportunities, enhancing courses with AI-based learning assistants and engaging in regional networks for innovation and knowledge transfer.
