Recommendations for the bachelor’s degree in chemistry at universities

Dig­i­tal teach­ing, research data man­age­ment and sus­tain­abil­i­ty in focus.

The Chem­istry Study Com­mis­sion of the Ger­man Chem­i­cal Soci­ety (GDCh) presents new, updat­ed rec­om­men­da­tions for the bach­e­lor’s pro­gram in chem­istry at uni­ver­si­ties. In addi­tion to the con­tent of the chem­istry sub­ject areas, new aspects of dig­i­tal teach­ing, research data man­age­ment and sus­tain­abil­i­ty in par­tic­u­lar have been tak­en into account.

The updat­ed rec­om­men­da­tions are pri­mar­i­ly con­cerned with cat­a­loging essen­tial sci­en­tif­ic con­tent and knowl­edge that should be taught in all uni­ver­si­ty bach­e­lor’s degree pro­grams in chem­istry. The cat­a­log of top­ics is intend­ed to help ensure the con­tin­ued high qual­i­ty of chem­istry stud­ies through­out Ger­many. Of course, the com­mis­sion assumes that indi­vid­ual uni­ver­si­ty loca­tions will addi­tion­al­ly set indi­vid­ual focal points.

The com­mis­sion attach­es par­tic­u­lar impor­tance to ensur­ing that the steady increase in detailed knowl­edge does not lead to a reduc­tion in prac­ti­cal lab­o­ra­to­ry train­ing. It is essen­tial for lat­er pro­fes­sion­al qual­i­fi­ca­tion that exper­i­men­ta­tion, obser­va­tion and eval­u­a­tion of exper­i­men­tal results are giv­en suf­fi­cient time in the course of study.

“Dig­i­tal teach­ing media also com­ple­ment mod­ern chem­istry stud­ies, but can in no way replace prac­ti­cal train­ing. The pro­por­tion of prac­ti­cal work in chem­istry stud­ies is about 35–50 percent.”

- Pro­fes­sor Dr. Peter R. Schrein­er, GDCh Pres­i­dent and Chair­man of the Study Commission

Due to the cen­tral impor­tance of the UN Sus­tain­able Devel­op­ment Goals for chem­istry in research and indus­tri­al appli­ca­tion as well as the polit­i­cal and social dis­cus­sion, con­tent in the sense of sus­tain­able devel­op­ment should also be inte­grat­ed into exist­ing cours­es or taught in new ones in the future.

In addi­tion, dig­i­ti­za­tion in mod­ern chem­istry cours­es requires com­pe­ten­cies in the han­dling of data, dig­i­tal teach­ing con­tent and research data man­age­ment already at bach­e­lor lev­el. This requires an addi­tion of data sci­ence tools includ­ing chem­istry infor­mat­ics basics to the course con­tent. New dig­i­tal tools enable much more com­pe­ten­cy-based teach­ing and learn­ing sce­nar­ios. How­ev­er, cre­at­ing dig­i­tal teach­ing media and con­cepts in a chem­i­cal con­text requires resources that should not be underestimated.

For suc­cess­ful sci­ence com­mu­ni­ca­tion, stu­dents should not only have sound spe­cial­ist knowl­edge, but also be able to con­vey facts adapt­ed to the respec­tive tar­get group, tak­ing into account the social sig­nif­i­cance of the respec­tive top­ic. In the respec­tive cours­es, it is there­fore advis­able to increas­ing­ly estab­lish ref­er­ences to social issues and every­day aspects. This link­ing of fac­tu­al top­ics with the social con­text sen­si­tizes stu­dents to pos­si­ble prob­lems and solu­tions through chem­istry and pro­motes fact-ori­ent­ed communication.

For decades, inter­dis­ci­pli­nary study com­mit­tees of the GDCh have been devel­op­ing rec­om­men­da­tions for the “Basic Stud­ies in Chem­istry”. While the focus at the end of the 1990s was on the suc­cess­ful con­ver­sion of diplo­ma cours­es to bach­e­lor’s and mas­ter’s cours­es, today the aim is to adapt the bach­e­lor’s course to cur­rent devel­op­ments at reg­u­lar inter­vals and to keep it fit for the future.

The cur­rent GDCh Study Com­mis­sion also includes mem­bers of the Con­fer­ence of Chem­istry Depart­ments (KFC), the GDCh Work­ing Group of Ger­man Uni­ver­si­ty Pro­fes­sors of Chem­istry (ADUC), the Bun­sen Soci­ety for Phys­i­cal Chem­istry (DBG), Dechema, the Ger­man Chem­i­cal Indus­try Asso­ci­a­tion (VCI), the The­o­ret­i­cal Chem­istry Work­ing Group, the GDCh Young Chemists Forum (JCF) and the GDCh spe­cial­ist groups.