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Nine University of Hamburg teachers awarded 2026 Hamburg Teaching Prize
8 July 2026, by Anna Priebe
Photo: UHH/Esfandiari
Maryam Blumenthal (science senator) with the award recipients from the University of Hamburg: Dr. Lars Longwitz, Prof. Dr. Dorothea Alewell, Laura Bischoff-Schumacher, Prof. Dr. Ania Muntau, Franziska Bachmann, Dr. Verena Kahl, Prof. Dr. Nina Perkowski, Dr. Ivo Raband und Sidney Oliveira (from left to right).
Excellence in university teaching is recognized and honored in Hamburg. On 7 July 2026 the Hamburg Teaching Prize was presented by the the Ministry of Science, Research and Equalities for the 18th time. Nine University of Hamburg faculty members were also honored at the State and University Library Carl von Ossietzky.
Like the University of Hamburg Teaching Award, the Hamburg Teaching Prize recognizes each year both exceptional dedication to teaching and innovative teaching methods and instructional approaches. Nominations for the awards—each endowed with €10,000 by the Ministry of Science, Research and Equalities—come from students. Faculty-level juries discuss the nominations and select the winner.
Prof. Dr. Natalia Filatkina, vice president for studies and teaching at the University of Hamburg: “I am delighted that, once again this year, outstanding instructors from all faculties at the University of Hamburg are being honored with the Hamburg Teaching Prize. The award-winning courses exemplify the great dedication, academic excellence, and pedagogical creativity with which our faculty members guide their students and inspire them to pursue scholarship. They create learning environments where knowledge is imparted, curiosity is sparked, and critical thinking is fostered. My heartfelt congratulations go out to all the award recipients—and my sincere thanks for their extraordinary dedication to teaching, which has a lasting impact on our university.”
Our winners:
Prof. Dr. Nina Perkowski
Faculty of Business, Economics and Social Sciences
Recognized for the two-semester teaching and research seminar “Stadtsoziologie im Dialog: Transdisziplinäre Perspektiven zwischen Wissenschaft und Stadtgesellschaft” (in cooperation with the “Research Office for Social Innovation” (ROSI), the Dulsberg Neighborhood Office e.V., and R1SE e.V.)
In this research seminar, students in their upper semesters of the bachelor’s program work in small groups to independently conduct qualitative research projects in collaboration with partners from Hamburg’s civil society. In this way, the seminar combines academic research with civil society practice. My primary goal is to empower students to conduct independent and reflective research: They develop their own research questions, independently acquire the theoretical and methodological knowledge relevant to their project, reflect on research ethics, and take full responsibility for their research project from conception through to the presentation of results. In this process, I see my role as that of a facilitator and close mentor who fosters independence without leaving students to fend for themselves.
The transdisciplinary nature of the seminar is particularly important to me: Students and practice partners are equal partners in the research projects, fostering a mutual exchange of knowledge. In this way, students learn to transfer their subject-specific knowledge into social practice in a way that is tailored to the audience, while simultaneously benefiting from the experience-based and practical knowledge of the practice partners, which sharpens and grounds their own research questions. I also place great emphasis on a participatory and engaging teaching style and the introduction of innovative methods such as Photovoice, walk-alongs, or the Ketso toolkit, as well as on the continuous development of the seminar: I actively incorporate student feedback and use it to shape the seminar’s future direction.
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Dr. Lars Longwitz
Faculty of Mathematics, Informatics and Natural Sciences
Recognized for the courses “Organic Chemistry 2” (OC2), “Advanced Organic Chemistry” (OCF), and parts of the “Integrated Synthesis Lab” (ISP)
Of course, I’ve incorporated many of the techniques commonly used today into my lectures—for example, the use of various media, surveys, and plenty of interaction. But not just digitally: I explain many mechanisms and more complex concepts on the blackboard, because that’s the perfect pace for presenting and processing knowledge. In my opinion, this is a much more effective approach than working solely with slides. I also find the connection between everyday lab work and the lecture topics to be very important; this is one of the biggest challenges in chemistry. It probably helps that I’m still active in the lab myself and conducting research.
In addition, collaborating with our excellent lab instructors has been very helpful in enhancing the connection between teaching and lab work, especially for the OC2 lecture. In the bachelor’s program, it’s simply very important to repeatedly establish connections to other courses and thereby raise awareness of how topics relate to one another—and that only works with good collaboration. It’s also particularly important to me in these courses that students can discuss their questions and insights from self-study with me. When my door is open, anyone can stop by, and often we end up discussing topics beyond the scope of the lecture.
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Dr. Verena Kahl und Franziska Bachmann
Faculty of Law
Recognized for the “Climate Law in International Context” (CLIC) program—supported, among others, by the University of Hamburg’s “International Partnership Funding” and “International Teaching and Learning Formats” funding programs, as well as the Faculty of Law
In 2024, we founded CLIC together with Prof. Ezio Costa Cordella and Cristóbal Melo from the Universidad de Chile as a transnational Climate Law Clinic—an innovative teaching and learning format focused on international exchange on issues of climate justice, with a particular emphasis on North-South perspectives. We combine in-person and online instruction in the fields of international environmental and climate law, human rights, and the rights of nature, as well as decolonial and feminist theories, with research and case studies supported by partner organizations from the legal profession and civil society. In addition, students organize events for the university community and the broader public. CLIC thus goes beyond the format of a conventional seminar in terms of both duration and scope and requires considerable commitment and motivation from the five students from each partner university, especially since it is an extracurricular program.
We were all the more delighted that the program was well received from the very beginning. This is likely also because, when designing the program, we placed particular importance on ensuring that students not only learn passively but also actively shape the program. In addition, CLIC fosters a diverse exchange, thereby laying the groundwork for long-term collaborations and even friendships. The project enables participants to broaden their own perspectives, gain new experiences, and immerse themselves in the (legal) culture of others. We are therefore very grateful for the wide-ranging support from our partner institutions and the university, especially Prof. Markus Kotzur as our patron. And we are delighted that our network continues to grow: The Universitat de Barcelona has now joined CLIC, and Stellenbosch University will be participating in the future.
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Dr. Ivo Raband
Faculty of Humanities
Recognized for the block seminar “Dutch Renaissance II: Dutch Art, 1600–1700”
When designing the seminar, it was important to me to give participants a comprehensive insight into art production in the early modern Netherlands while transcending genre boundaries. The students therefore engaged with a wide variety of objects and analyzed and discussed them using the “social history of art” methodology. Topics included Rembrandt van Rijn, Johannes Vermeer, (group) portraits, architecture, decorative arts, and sculpture.
In a total of nine thematic groups, the students wrote introductory thematic texts—similar to exhibition texts in museum settings—examined more than 50 individual objects, and compiled their findings into a course reader of nearly 440 pages. The group work on the thematic texts, the discussions in plenary sessions, and the mandatory peer-to-peer feedback were, for me, key pedagogical approaches for conveying just how essential the collaborative creation and refinement of content and texts is in the humanities. During two field trips to the Hamburger Kunsthalle and the Gemäldegalerie in Berlin, the content previously explored in the seminar was further explored in front of selected original works.
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Laura Bischoff-Schumacher
Faculty of Psychology and Human Movement Science
Recognized for the seminar “Strengthening Interdisciplinary Collaboration in Health Care”
In everyday medical practice, many professional groups already work side by side. However, high-quality care is achieved when the various professions truly integrate their knowledge, experiences, and perspectives. That is why it was very important to me in this seminar that the students learn to view interprofessional collaboration as a central component of health care. At the same time, I wanted to empower the students to critically examine the status quo. As future educators, they should not only develop a deep understanding themselves but also learn how to later convey this topic—and the necessary collaboration skills—to their own students in the health care professions.
That is why, during the seminar, the students developed their own lesson plans and, through role-playing, discussions, and panel talks, learned to view healthcare from different perspectives, thereby experiencing the complexity of interprofessional collaboration. We paid particular attention to the political level, as many students were completely unfamiliar with the professional advocacy groups representing the healthcare professions.
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Sidney Oliveira
Faculty of Education
Recognized for the seminars “School and Post-Migration,” “Unlearning in White Spaces,” “Black Pedagogy According to bell hooks,” and “Learning and Postcolonial Theories”
It was important to me to create a learning space in which students could critically reflect on coloniality, racism, intersectionality, critiques of capitalism, and anti-Black conditions, while at the same time learning to take different forms of knowledge seriously. The starting points were educational thinkers such as bell hooks and Paulo Freire, as well as postcolonial and decolonial perspectives on learning. Another goal was to highlight the breadth of Black knowledge production: through scholarly texts, orally transmitted stories, (narrative) imaginations, and embodied forms of knowledge.
That is why I also integrated perspectives from schools, social pedagogy, culture, and civic engagement into the seminars. Encounters with Black professionals, collaborations with anti-racism working groups, workshops with the “Teachers with Migrant Backgrounds” network of the State Institute for Qualification and Quality Development in Schools in Hamburg (Landesinstitut für Qualifizierung und Qualitätsentwicklung in Schulen), theater visits, and student exhibitions at the MARKK Museum were intended to help students experience how theory, aesthetic practice, educational work, and social issues are interconnected. It was particularly important to me to shape learning as a process of solidarity—one of reflection, unlearning, and relearning.
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Prof. Dr. Dorothea Alewell
University of Hamburg Business School
Recognized for the module “Human Resource Management: Workforce Planning,” consisting of a lecture and the accompanying seminar
In my courses, I generally place great importance on students critically examining and discussing the content. To this end, they learn to view companies as a network of interests among various stakeholders, such as employers and employees, unions, customers, suppliers, and many other groups. It is therefore also about the social and political relevance of what happens within companies. As part of the UDL project (Universal Design for Learning in Teaching) at the Faculty of Education, a specific goal of the lecture was to explore diverse learning paths and working methods for the students.
In addition to the traditional PowerPoint presentation, these included practice exercises modeled after potential exam questions and learning journals for self-reflection or to deepen understanding of the content. We began each session by explicitly inviting students to ask questions and encouraged them to share experiences related to their own work in organizations connected to the lecture material. A special feature was an interactive Advent calendar on Moodle, which featured current newspaper articles on topics covered in the lecture. A pre-Christmas get-together in the lecture hall further strengthened the sense of community. Overall, this created a space where students could learn without anxiety, despite the exam at the end of the semester.
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Prof. Dr. Ania Muntau
Faculty of Medicine
Recognized for curricular and extracurricular commitment to teaching in the field of pediatrics and youth medicine
As a university professor, I feel a responsibility to prepare students as well as possible for their careers. To that end, I have developed many elements of our curriculum together with the students, based on their wishes and needs. This also includes extracurricular teaching opportunities that allow students to delve deeper into topics, discuss clinical issues in greater detail, and gain additional insights into pediatric and youth medicine. However, I don’t just want to impart knowledge; I also want to show students how experienced pediatricians think, make decisions, and set priorities. With me, they learn step by step how to systematically assess a sick child, recognize warning signs early on, and make diagnostic and therapeutic decisions. I also accompany my students to the bedside, where I practice with them how to approach the child with empathy, gain the child’s trust, and explain the medical situation to the child’s parents clearly and comprehensibly.
One unique approach I use is to give students a glimpse into my professional life by live-streaming an emergency situation into the lecture hall and working together to resolve the acute situation. However, it is also important to me to listen to the future doctors and allow them to ask me personal questions about the impact of this profession on their lives and to share my experiences with them. It is my greatest joy, and I consider it a privilege, to be a trusted mentor who imparts knowledge while also providing guidance on their journey toward a career in pediatrics.
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