The Teaching Award of Freie Universität Berlin is not intended for individual faculty members, but rather for the development of innovative teaching concepts and formats. Each year it will be devoted to a particular topic. Proposals submitted this year should focus on teaching projects that are "research oriented and international." Anyone submitting a proposal should currently be a faculty member or student at Freie Universität.

In addition, the introduction of the new award is intended to encourage communication about good teaching at Freie Universität Berlin and to focus more attention on teaching. "We want to create spaces at the university that offer more opportunities than are currently available for talking about teaching, where we can animate and inspire each other to try out new ideas and possibilities," said Professor Peter-André Alt, the president of Freie Universität Berlin. The award ceremony will take place during a "Day of Teaching" during the 2014 summer semester.

Research-oriented teaching is a key component of the university's development strategy entitled "Veritas – Justitia – Libertas. International Network University." With this strategy Freie Universität Berlin won excellence status in the German national Excellence Initiative for the second time in 2012.

For more information about the Teaching Award, see the interview in campus.leben with the president of Freie Universität Berlin, Prof. Dr. Peter-André Alt.