Deakin University Australia, in partnership with Brandenburg University of Technology Cottbus-Senftenberg, Germany, is pleased to announce a new Dual Award Program in Cultural Heritage and World Heritage Studies.
This initiative is the first reciprocal international dual award postgraduate program in the cultural heritage and museum studies discipline in Australia and Germany. Deakin is a leading, globally recognized university in cultural heritage education and research; the BTU program is designed around the UNESCO Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage. Thus the dual Masters degree program is a rare opportunity for new heritage and museum studies students.
The program provides qualified students with the opportunity to earn a Master of Cultural Heritage from Deakin University Australia and a Master of Arts in World Heritage from Brandenburg University of Technology (BTU) Cottbus-Senftenberg, Germany, in two years of full-time study. The program is offered only in full-time enrolment mode.
‘The identification, conservation, interpretation and management of cultural heritage whether it’s in the form of objects and collections in museums, historic buildings, cultural landscapes or intangible cultural heritage such as dance are increasingly part of global networks of knowledge production, regulation and consumption,’ said Andrea Witcomb, Professor of Cultural Heritage at Deakin University.
Through the partnership arrangement, students from BTU complete two trimesters of study at Deakin and Deakin students complete a semester of study at BTU. Working as a collegial cohort, students from both universities will experience a distinctive mixed-mode of on-shore, on-line and international learning, in a multi-cultural environment. The final semester is dedicated to a research thesis, co-supervised by DU and BTU faculty.
The Deakin degree has a special focus on tangible and intangible heritage in the Asia Pacific region, while the BTU degree takes a global perspective on UNESCO’s approach to cultural and natural heritage, equipping graduates from the dual award program with the skills and knowledge to work in local and international contexts.
This exceptional program also serves as a PhD pathway for those students who wish to take their museum and cultural heritage studies further.
The program is fee neutral, meaning students only pay tuition fees to their home institution. There are no tuition fees charged to BTU students when they are in Australia and vice-versa for Deakin students when they are in Germany.
The first cohort of BTU students will arrive at Deakin in March 2015, and the first cohort of Deakin students will commence their BTU studies in September 2015.
