With Freiraum, the Stiftung Innovation in der Hochschullehre funds experimental teaching projects in various disciplines that offer outstanding potential for innovation. Across the whole of Germany, twenty-one projects from the field of human medicine and healthcare—including three based at the Faculty of Medicine Bonn—will be receiving support during the funding period that is now getting under way.
The three chosen projects are using virtual reality (VR), AI and digital simulations to offer students highly realistic learning environments. The foundation is providing some €400,000 in funding to the V-RAY project, which is designed to make the topic of radiation protection more accessible to students with the help of VR goggles. €395,000 is going toward the second project, the Ophthalmic Clinic’s AI-powered SkillsLab, which gives the students the chance to practice their surgical skills, among other things. Meanwhile, NOSI—the Neurological Oculomotor Simulator—is taking shape at the Center for Neurology. A digital training facility for studying pupillary responses and eye movements, it has secured funding worth €287,000.
Professor Bernd Weber, Dean of the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Bonn, is pleased with this triple funding success: “Securing multiple grants once again is a sign of just how much potential for innovation is packed inside our faculty. The Freiraum support from the foundation will enable us to get the education and training we provide in Bonn even fitter for the future.”
Dean of Studies Professor Bernd Pötzsch agrees, highlighting the increasing importance of innovative training: “Making the content of degree programs accessible is particularly vital in medicine, and digital formats can help our students to get themselves ready for day-to-day clinical work in an even more targeted way.”
An overview of the funded projects:
With the planned V-RAY project, the Clinic for Radiation Therapy and Radiation Oncology at the University Hospital Bonn, led by Professor Eleni Gkika, Dr. Davide Scafa and Privatdozent Dr. Cas Dejonckheere, intends to inject fresh momentum into radiation protection training. The aim is to enable students and practitioners to gain a better understanding of the effects of ionizing radiation in a number of highly realistic scenarios with the aid of VR goggles. AI-supported feedback and simulations will help explain techniques including radiation absorption and diffusion and allow the students to practice protective measures under real-life conditions. In the long term, the project team wants to deepen people’s understanding of radiation physics, improve their safety skills and modernize the training provided in this field.
Part of the Ophthalmology Clinic at the University Hospital Bonn, the SkillsLab is a training facility that teaches practical ophthalmology skills. It plans to use its Freiraum funding to add simulation exercises to its portfolio. This combination of practical exercises and AI-enabled software will let students hone their skills in a safe and secure environment outside their day-to-day clinical work. A number of practical stations are envisaged, where they will be able to recreate illnesses through active personal experience, conduct non-invasive examinations digitally and practice their microsurgery skills under real-life conditions with digital support.
The AI software that is to be newly developed will initially take the students through each of the steps involved in eye surgery before recording their practice procedures and providing them with a version for study purposes in which the anatomical structures of the eye are all labeled. The project is being led by Carolin Kettern, Head of HR Controlling and Digitalization at the University Hospital Bonn. Professor Frank Holz, Director of the Ophthalmology Clinic at the hospital, explains: “We’re delighted that we’ll be able to offer students the opportunity to get involved in this innovative, highly attractive teaching project in the future.”
Studying pupillary responses and eye movements plays a key role in neurological diagnoses, especially when providing emergency care to patients who are in a coma or suffering from dizziness or double vision. It can furnish crucial indications of serious causes such as strokes and brain hemorrhages, particularly in the case of the above symptoms, which are often quite vague. A significant amount of practice is needed to recognize and categorize pathological findings correctly. Because not all that many suitable patients are available at any given time, the project team led by Privatdozent Dr. Johannes Weller from the University Hospital Bonn’s Center for Neurology is creating a digital simulator designed to allow students to conduct practice examinations. The project team wants to develop and test the application, assess its benefit to teaching and make it available nationwide for free.
Professor Tobias Raupach and his team from the Institute for Medical Education at the University of Bonn helped the applicants to plan their projects and submit their proposals. “Interest in this grant program remains consistently high at the University Hospital Bonn,” he says. “Besides the application process, we also lend a hand with successful implementation and evaluation of the projects. Ultimately, what matters is that the students benefit from the innovations that are produced.”
About the Freiraum funding
Established in 2020, the Stiftung Innovation in der Hochschullehre has been running its Freiraum grant program since 2022. No fewer than 143 two-year projects are being supported across Germany in the 2026 funding period, attracting some €46 million in funding overall. The winning projects were chosen in a competitive, science-led process that saw all the proposals undergo a thorough review by three university members from different backgrounds: one manager, one student and one teacher.
Awarding funding worth up to €150 million every year, the foundation aims to strengthen high-quality, internationally competitive teaching at German universities. All the funds are provided by the federal and state governments.
See stiftung-hochschullehre.de/foerderung/freiraum/ for further information.