Keynote on resilience in higher education at a DAAD meeting in Cairo with Palestinian, Egyptian and German colleagues, on how Gaza’s universities keep teaching and why their work needs recognition, not only endurance.

On 15 October 2026 I gave a keynote on resilience at the trilateral symposium convened by the DAAD with FU Berlin, TU Berlin and Marburg University, hosted by the DAAD regional office in Cairo, with Palestinian, Egyptian and German colleagues.

Resilience, in the sense that matters, is a property of systems rather than a virtue of individuals: the capacity to keep teaching, examining and awarding degrees, built from recognition, lasting funding and decisions that someone is already entitled to take. Gaza’s universities restarted teaching in tents, temporary learning spaces and online before their buildings were repaired; just as the Freie Universität Berlin was founded in a cinema in 1948, such institutions are built by people and then recognised by others. Recognition of credits, not only funding, was the work of the day.

Many thanks to the organisers Hoda El Mahgoub, Irene Khorazaty and Christina Stahlbock, to the DAAD regional office Cairo represented by Dr. Wiebke Bachmann, and to Dr. Erik Hansalek, Head of Division for Cooperation with Africa and the Middle East at the BMFTR. (LinkedIn post)

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Keynote on Resilience and Higher Education in Gaza at the DAAD Regional Office Cairo

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