After three successful years, funding for the BeCOIL joint project came to an end in December 2025 - and with it the position of COIL coordinator at ASH Berlin. The project, which was established at nine Berlin colleges and universities, was funded as part of the quality and innovation offensive of the Berlin Senate Department for Science, Health and Care.
On November 10, 2025, the BeCOIL joint project held its closing ceremony, which was attended by more than 75 representatives from the nine Berlin joint universities and other universities from Berlin and Brandenburg. The Vice President for Studies, Teaching and Digitalization, Prof. Dr. Anja Voss, and several colleagues and COIL lecturers from ASH Berlin, including Prof. Dr. Dagmar Bergs-Winkels, also took part in the event. Together, the participants looked back on the groundbreaking results and experiences of the project, concluding that COIL projects enable international learning experiences for all students and promote the development of global networks and transcultural skills.
COIL as a driver of internationalization
Virtual exchange formats, known as COILs (Collaborative Online International Learning), are a central component of the Internationalization@Home strategies at Berlin universities - including ASH Berlin. Since the start of the project in 2023, the nine Berlin higher education institutions and universities have worked closely together as part of BeCOIL to expand COIL in a targeted manner and anchor it permanently in teaching.
Coordinators were appointed at all partner universities to advise and support teachers in the design and implementation of COILs. In addition, the BeCOIL team developed cross-university training courses and digital learning materials, including a self-study course and mini-teaching videos for teachers as well as a serious game for students. This COIL-related support is available to all interested parties even after the project has ended and supports the sustainable integration of international online collaboration into university teaching.
Assessment after three years
The results of the project impressively demonstrate the success of the collaborative approach:
- 240 COILs were carried out at the nine collaborative universities.
- More than 2,900 Berlin students took part in the virtual exchange projects.
- A total of 368 participants were trained on COIL topics in 18 online training courses.
Outlook
In view of the drastic cuts that Berlin's colleges and universities are currently facing, projects such as COIL, which support digital - and therefore not cost-related - exchanges, are likely to become increasingly relevant in the future in order to continue to enable internationalization in studying and teaching. It is therefore very regrettable that funding for the BeCOIL joint project cannot be continued by the Berlin Senate. However, the numerous support services developed by the network in recent years, such as learning videos and self-study courses, can continue to help teachers interested in digital exchange to implement COILs even after the end of the project.
The COILs that have been successfully implemented at ASH Berlin over the last three years, some of which are set to become permanent, impressively demonstrate the added value that international collaborations also have for SAGE degree courses - both for the universities and for teachers and students.
