Global Perspectives

Broadening Horizons

New experiences breed innovation. As an open-minded, international university, WU encourages it students, faculty, and staff to spend time abroad.
“Both the work-related insights and the intercultural exchange during my week in Helsinki were very beneficial to me.”
Manuela Lang, Admissions

Spending time abroad is beneficial for everyone at WU. The opportunity to exchange expertise and ideas with colleagues at other universities gives students, faculty, researchers, and administrative staff fresh inspiration that they can apply to their work or studies at WU. Researchers Peter Vandor and Gerhard Speckbacher can even provide scientific proof for this phenomenon – they tested WU students’ entrepreneurial skills before and after an exchange semester abroad. Compared to a control group of students who remained in Vienna, the students who had gone on exchange had more innovative entrepreneurial ideas (Peter Vandor, Nikolaus Franke, 2016. See Paris and … found a business? The impact of cross-cultural experience on opportunity recognition capabilities. Journal of Business Venturing [JBV] 31 [4], 381–407).

“We all know that meaningful learning is the type of learning that sticks and continues long after one leaves the classroom. In that regard, I have acquired meaningful experiences that continue shaping my research and teaching today, here, back at the WU.”
Milda Zilinskaite, Institute for English Business Communication

This is why we try to give as many members of the WU community as possible the chance to visit an international partner university. Intensive consulting services, grants, and mobility funding for research abroad are some of the tools we use to achieve this.

“The opportunity to actually live in the country where I plan to make my professional future was definitely the greatest benefit for me during my exchange semester.”
Martina Pardy, student

We are also working hard to make WU even more attractive for incoming exchange students and visiting faculty. Because if our campus provides an international atmosphere and our students, faculty, and staff have the opportunity to work and study with international colleagues, then we can be sure we’re giving our students the education they need to act responsibly in a globalized future.

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Discovering the World