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THE INTERUNIVERSITY COLLEGE FOR HEALTH AND DEVELOPMENT

The activities of the Interuniversity College are based on needs within the health system and society:

  • Conventional health care, including conventional medicine and conventional education, are indispensable; they can be complemented by various approaches such as CAM, psychosocial approaches, and reform didactics.

  • These complementing approaches must be subject to both scientific and psychosocial quality assurance in order to optimise their function within the health system and society.

The Interuniversity College for Health and Development Graz / Seggau Castle, Austria is the hub of an international network of university institutes, departments and work groups that wish to document their special interest in the further scientific and psychosocial qualification of professionals in the complementary, alternative medical and psychosocial field, some with a special emphasis on child development, addiction prevention and health. More than 30 partner institutions come from education, psychosocial training, public health, health promotion, natural science and medicine including CAM. Together with other partner organisations, they form the inter-uni.net for integrated health sciences.

The College coordinates the use of the products of a Leonardo da Vinci project funded by the European Commission with the aim of providing tools for scientific and psychosocial qualification among the abovementioned target groups of professionals.

Since 2000 and 2004, respectively, the College has run two courses

  • MSc Complementary & Psychosocial Health Sciences

  • MSc Child Development

They were accredited as Master courses within the meaning of § 27-28 of the Austrian Law on University Studies, which concerns nonuniversity (private) post academic institutions.

Blended learning formats aim at fostering sustainable processes and lifelong learning with regard to further scientific and psychosocial qualification of students; this is in particular provided by

  • selection of students prior to entering the course, including academic requirements or equivalent / professional experience / age;

  • seminars including theory workshops / students’ self-reflection on their own original competency / case supervision;

  • internet interaction including study units / personal work / tutorial feedback;

  • fostering students’ own learning process through literature research / everyday practice.

  • One third of course work is dedicated to the Master thesis (dissertation) which, as a rule, is based on quantitative or qualitative data from the student’s research projects.

Main areas of research and publication are

  • complementary health sciences

  • psychosocial health sciences

  • child development and health

  • evaluation and continuing development of didactic approaches at the College

To date, the College has coordinated teaching/learning and research activities of staff and 270 students.