Research Projects

International Student and Research Exchange Programme GAME

The innovative concept of GAME is based on the synchronized implementation of identical eco-logical experiments at different sites worldwide. This is combined with a very intense and practical education of the participating students who are enabled by the program to prepare their master thesis. However, GAME itself is not a self-contained master degree program.

The scientific assignments are conducted by the students in bi-national teams which consist each of a German participant and one student from one of our partner institutes. Spatially each GAME-project follows up a sandwich structure: the practical assignments (5 months) are conducted abroad at one of our partner institutions supervised by a local scientist. However, the preparation and post processing of the projects take place together with all participating students at the IFM-GEOMAR in Kiel. Thus there is an exchange of students in both directions. During the analysis the teams combine and bundle their data-sets and assemble them into a “big picture”. Only in this way answers can be found to global questions traversing biogeographical spaces and borders of eco-systems. In long terms the assemblage of the results of all projects in one database leads to a very valuable basis for further superior studies.

Students participating in GAME

The high scientific quality of the program is guaranteed via a very intense one month preparative course and a three month post processing course at the IFM-GEOMAR. During the preparation all participants together with scientists of the IFM-GEOMAR develop the experimental design for the upcoming study and analyze and interpret the results afterwards. Accompanying modular teaching communicates the necessary competence to conduct highly relevant ecological questions suc-cessfully. The participants learn together and learn from each other, discuss different approaches and during this time of intense multicultural group work build up a network of knowledge which they can profit from during their practical work but also in later stages of their scientific career.

Via the integration of German students in working groups abroad (during the practical phase of each project) and the work in multinational groups (during the preparation and post processing course) GAME combines science with an intense cultural and social experience. Thus two aspects are linked in a way, which has rarely been jointly considered so far. With GAME this happens above all in a very practical way: to be feasible everywhere the experiments have to be simple, efficient and flexible to assure that they can be realized according to the local technical and logistic facilities. Thus planning and conducting GAME-projects demand also creativity as well as cultural empathy of the participants – within the bi-national teams but also in the context of local condi-tions. This is because GAME-students don’t only work together with the local scientists but very often also with fishermen, rangers, governmental authorities and NGOs. So GAME is not only about the production of a master thesis of individual students abroad, but also about working to-gether on a globally scaled question considering regional characteristics.

Detailed information concerning the idea of the program and its organization can be found on GAME webpage.