External Calls for Proposal

The Stifterverband is awarding the Ars legendi prize for excellent university teaching for the 18th time. The prize, which is endowed with 30,000 euros, is intended to emphasise the special importance of university teaching for the training of young academics and to create a career-effective incentive to become involved in university teaching and to promote it beyond one's own sphere of activity.

This year's call for applications is dedicated to the topic of ‘Democracy Education’. Universities have a central responsibility to enable students to act in a reflective, value-based and responsible manner in a pluralistic, democratic society. The Ars legendi Award for Excellence in University Teaching 2025 recognises teachers who take on this challenge with particular commitment and integrate democracy as an educational mission into their teaching, regardless of the respective subject area.

The following requirements are decisive for an award:

• The teacher systematically integrates democracy education into their teaching and makes democratic processes and principles tangible for students.
• The teacher designs teaching-learning scenarios in such a way that students are encouraged to actively engage with democratic challenges and take on social responsibility.
• The teacher provides impulses for the structural anchoring of democracy education in university teaching.
• The teacher acts as a democratic role model.

A key quality criterion of the Ars legendi Award is the consideration of the perspectives of different university actors. An application is only complete if the following three statements are submitted:
(1) that of the faculty/department,
(2) those of the student council or other student representatives,
(3) those of the candidates.

Application deadline is 3rd August 2025.

Further information on the application procedure, the application documents and background information on previous award winners can be found at https://www.stifterverband.org/ars-legendi-preisExternal link.

Previous tenders were as follows:

• 'Freiraum 2026' - Foundation for Innovation in University Teaching
• 'Lehrarchitektur.' Shaping the university of the future
• 'Freiraum 2025' – Foundation for Innovation in University Teaching
• 'Freiraum 2023' – Foundation for Innovation in University Teaching
• 'Fokus Portale/Fokus Netzwerke' – Foundation for Innovation in University Teaching
• 'Freiraum 2022' – Foundation for Innovation in University Teaching
• Empowering University Teaching through Digitalisation

Previous tenders were as follows:

• eTeach free spaces in the eTeaching Network Thuringia
• Cooperative impulse projects in the eTeach network Thuringia 2024
• Cooperative impulse projects in the eTeach network Thuringia 2023
• Cooperative impulse projects in the eTeach network Thuringia 2022

Previous tenders in this area were as follows:

• Ars legendi prize for excellent university teaching 2024
• Ars legendi prize for excellent university teaching 2023
• Ars legendi Faculty prize in Medicine
• Ars legendi Faculty prize in Mathematics and Natural science

Previous tenders in this area were as follows:

• Fellowships for Innovations in digital University Teaching 2025/26
• Fellowships for Innovations in digital University Teaching 2024/25
• Fellowships for Innovations in digital University Teaching 2023/24
• Fellowships for Innovations in digital University Teaching 2022/23
• Fellowships for Innovations in digital University Teaching 2021/22

Previous tenders in this area were as follows:

• MINTchallenge: expertise in sustainable development
• SMART qualifies 2022: MINT for digital world
• SMART qualifies: MINTplus - plusMINT

Previous tenders were as follows:

• Digital Education Area - FMER announcement on the development of a digital education platform
• Promotion of artificial intelligence in higher education (federal-state initiative)

Previous tenders were as follows:

• Data Literacy Learning Steps (Stifterverband)
• AI-Campus searches Teaching Fellows 
• Employer award for education 2022
• Room laboratories - Stifterverband and Dieter Schwarz Stiftung (Stifterverband)
• DigitalChangeMaker Fellowships (Stifterverband)
• 'Kolleg Didaktik:digital': Junior Fellwoships of the Joachim Hertz Stiftung
• Curricula of the future