Dr. Nerea Vöing (University of Paderborn), Dr. Alexa K. Brase (University of Hamburg), Dr. Stefka Weber (Münster University of Applied Sciences), Prof. Dr. Maik Arnold (Nordhausen University of Applied Sciences)
What if instead of travelling to a conference, the conference came to your institution? That question started something in our German-speaking SoTL Network – and the answer turned into the format SoTL Journey we keep returning to the sixth time in 2026.
How the SoTL Journey started
Our network was founded in 2017, after a lively discussion about SoTL at the German Higher Education Didactics conference (DGHD) in the same year. We agreed on something early: SoTL thrives when educators can actually talk to one another across disciplines and across institutions, and when the Teacher-Researcher identity gets institutional support, not just rhetorical recognition. We needed a format that could make this concrete. Not one that required everyone to travel somewhere. So we developed a virtual SoTL Journey to let participants discover the diversity of SoTL at different German-speaking higher education institutions.
What we do
The idea is elegantly simple. Rather than gathering everyone in one location, we visit SoTL practitioners at different institutions. Participants spend ninety minutes at a host institution, where they are welcomed by “Local Guides” and their “Buddies” who lead them through the local SoTL landscape — what we playfully call the local SoTL highlights. Each destination is structured around genuine dialogue: plenary or breakout discussions bring together SoTL-active colleagues from the host institution and visitors from across the region, exploring what motivates us to engage with SoTL, how we practise it in our very different contexts, and what we take away from the exchange.
We ran our first tour between 2020 and 2021, and are glad to start the sixth iteration in 2026. By the time of writing, about 25 institutions had taken part — spanning universities, universities of applied sciences, technical universities and higher education networks across Germany, Austria and Switzerland. Since 2025, we also visited universities in Norway, UK, and France. More destinations in Europe will be coming this year. Topics have ranged from community building across disciplinary boundaries and self-directed learning in digital environments to institutional SoTL anchors and the integration of Decoding the Disciplines approaches. Every destination has been different, and that variety is what is significant of this SoTL community exchange.
What We Have Learned
Running the SoTL Journey has reinforced something we had suspected but not yet seen so clearly: SoTL is far more diverse in practice than any single publication or conference strand can capture. Seeing it live, in context, in conversation with the people who are doing it – that changes something. Colleagues who were hesitant about whether their work “counts” as SoTL have found themselves recognised and encouraged. Collaborations between institutions have grown out of conversations that began in a ninety-minute breakout room. Occasionally, students have joined us at various stops to reflect on what cross-status partnerships actually look like in practice. We have recently started research on the SoTL Journey format and principle and are interested in the questions: how do educators understand SoTL as a means for improving teaching quality? How do those interested in SoTL build a community? And what part does the SoTL Journey play in that process?
Why it matters beyond our network
What has surprised us most is how quickly the format has developed. The SoTL Journey began as a response to a local need — to connect SoTL practitioners across a fragmented higher education landscape — but the underlying problem is not unique to German-speaking institutions. Educators across Europe are conducting serious, thoughtful research on their teaching, often without realizing that colleagues elsewhere are asking similar questions. Formats that enable direct, low-threshold exchange between institutions can help move SoTL from an individual practice to a shared culture. We believe that this shift is where a true community of practice emerges. We are currently planning to expand the journey in 2026 to other countries, including Ghana, Sweden, and the UK.
An Invitation to Join Us
We warmly invite colleagues from across Europe to connect with us, to bring our Journey to their institutions, or simply to follow what we are building together. SoTL grows strongest as a shared conversation, and there is always room for one more stop on the tour.
