Love Oxford-Berlin Photo Competition

Win a trip to Berlin for two, courtesy of the Oxford-Berlin Research partnership

If you’re a current Oxford student, you have the chance to win an all-expenses paid trip to Berlin.

All you have to do is upload a photo to social media in the run-up to Valentine’s Day (3-16 February 2020) showing how you’re supporting the community. It could show you or other students taking part in volunteering activities, working at community events, contributing to an environmental project, or any other type of community engagement.

Any public images uploaded by Oxford students to Facebook, Twitter or Instagram using the hashtags #LoveOXBER and #Oxford between Monday 3 and Sunday 16 February will automatically be entered into the competition.

The photos will be judged by a panel of staff and students. The Oxford student with the winning photo will receive a three-day trip to Berlin for themselves and a research partner. The trip will coincide with the Long Night of the Sciences event on Saturday 6 June, and will include flights, accommodation and spending money. Three runners-up will each receive a £50 book voucher.

The Love Oxford-Berlin photo competition celebrates the Oxford-Berlin Research Partnership, which supports research collaboration between Oxford and four Berlin universities. A parallel competition will run at the four Berlin universities taking part in the collaboration, with a trip to Oxford as the prize.

All current Oxford students can enter the competition. Questions and answers are below, and full terms and conditions can be found here.

Image credit: Dominic Simon

Questions and answers

Are there any rules around the images I upload?

All images should be your own work and you must be the sole owner of the entire copyright on all images entered. Entries should not display frame, text or watermarks. Digital adjustments (e.g. to tone, contrast, cropping, etc) are permitted, provided that the scene depicted remains realistic and representative of student life and voluntary activity in Oxford If you have submitted a photograph of an individual or a group in a private setting, you must have obtained the prior consent of all recognisable individuals for the use of that photograph in accordance with this competition and be able to provide proof that you have done so if required. See the full terms and conditions for further details.

How will the prizes be judged?

All images uploaded by current Oxford students to Facebook, Twitter or Instagram between 4 and 16 February 2020 using the hashtags #OXBER and #Oxford will be entered into the competition to be judged. Images will be judged on their aesthetic quality, originality, and relevance of the image and caption to the subject theme of the competition. The owners of the winning social media account will be contacted after the judges have made a decision. The account owners will be asked to send an email from their University email address confirming their student number, to confirm that they are a current Oxford student.

What is OXBER?

OXBER is the acronym of the Oxford-Berlin Research Partnership, a cooperation between Oxford University and the Berlin University Alliance. The partnership began in December 2017.

What is the Berlin University Alliance?

The Berlin University Alliance is a consortium consisting of three major Berlin universities, Freie Universität Berlin, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, and Technische Universität Berlin, together with Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin. The four partners joined forces to further develop Berlin as a research hub with international drawing power. With its proposal “Crossing Boundaries toward an Integrated Research Environment,” the Berlin University Alliance won funding as a group in the Universities of Excellence funding line of the German government’s Excellence Strategy. The Berlin alliance is the first and only consortium with excellence status in Germany.

How can students benefit from this partnership?

So far, the main focus of the partnership has been research cooperation. There is a number of research projects currently being funded, and these of course generate indirect benefits for students as well: through participation in such projects, guest lectures by interesting speakers and so on. The partnership is still very young and will be developing future options for its students.

Why did you choose this topic for the competition?

OXBER came about because of the institutions’ belief in protecting Academia’s traditional values – freedom of expression, freedom of enquiry, freedom of collaboration, and freedom of movement. We strongly believe in building bridges between people – across any national, personal, or institutional boundaries. But universities also have a major impact on the communities in which they exist, and we would like to see – and let the public see - where you as students build bridges into the communities that surround you.

I would like to study at one of the universities of the Berlin University Alliance. Who can I contact?

Please get in contact with your university of choice directly:
Charité: https://www.charite.de/studium_lehre/
FU: https://www.fu-berlin.de/studium/beratung/ssc
HU: Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin (hu-berlin.de)
TU: https://www.studienberatung.tu-berlin.de/menu/orientieren/

Is there an exchange program for students within the Oxford Berlin Research Partnership?

At the moment there are no student exchange programs within the partnership, but it is our ambition to introduce mobility programs for graduate students, to help them undertake research in Berlin, for Oxford students, and Oxford, for Berlin students.