Welcoming and supporting athletes and officials from all over the world, finding the right route, giving spectators a special live experience or ensuring that everything is in the right place at the right time at the sports venues - 15 students from the University of Wuppertal took on these tasks, were part of this year's biggest multi-sport event as volunteers and made valuable contacts in this way.

Some of them also took the opportunity to stop by the University of Wuppertal's festival stand in Essen's Gruga Park during their break. Organised by Wuppertal UniSport, a dedicated team there invited visitors to get in touch with the University of Wuppertal - whether it was to find out about the courses on offer, have fun with various hands-on activities and experiments on the subject of green chemistry, or take a look at the Formula Student racing car, designed and built by Wuppertal students from the Green Lion Racing Team.

"That was the core of the games for us: To be present and in dialogue! With students, with visitors and also with representatives of NRW and federal politics, with whom we talked at various points about the challenges, tasks and opportunities of university sports centres and repeatedly brought the university of Wuppertal into the conversation," explains Dennis Fink, Head of UniSports at the University of Wuppertal.

When NRW Minister President Hendrik Wüst and NRW Science Minister Ina Brandes visited the Wuppertal University stand, he and his team showed what makes the location special: a vibrant university sports centre, student innovation and genuine enthusiasm for research and teaching. "The exchange at this level was important to us. University sports centres are more than just a sporting balance to studying: they are part of a national performance system that combines popular and elite sport and promotes young talent. Events such as the World University Games show the potential of student sport - and how valuable political visibility is for this," says Fink.

A very special connection

As part of the World University Games and the "Adopt a Delegation" programme, the University of Wuppertal also welcomed a delegation from the Technical University of Košice (TUKE). The aim of the meeting was to further expand the long-standing university partnership and provide new impetus for cooperation.

The connection between TUKE and BUW goes back to the early 1980s - supported by the town twinning between Wuppertal and Košice that has existed since 1980 and the university cooperation initiated in 1982. The Games now offered a sporting and festive occasion to revitalise this long-standing partnership.

"The fact that we made a conscious decision in favour of Slovakia as part of 'Adopt a Delegation' was a decision with symbolic power. The historical and scientific connections between Wuppertal and Košice were a key motivation," emphasised Prof. Dr.-Ing. Peter Gust, Vice-Rector for Third Mission and International Affairs, at the reception for the guests on the Grifflenberg campus.

The visit focussed on an exchange on joint projects and future opportunities for cooperation in research, teaching and transfer. The Slovakian delegation met with representatives of the Schumpeter School of Business and Economics and the Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Information Technology and Media Technology. Participation in official receptions and the opportunity to meet with representatives from state and federal politics also emphasised the importance of the visit.

Plans for the future include intensifying student and doctoral student exchanges as part of Erasmus, organising internships both in the Košice region and in the Bergisch city-triangle and submitting joint applications for EU funding for scientific events and research projects.