RWU and Police Headquarters Seal Partnership

The collaboration between RWU and the Ravensburg Police Headquarters is set to be further strengthened in the future. To this end, on Wednesday, October 14, RWU Vice President for International Affairs, Research, and Transfer, Professor Dr. Barbara Niersbach, signed a joint “Memorandum of Understanding” with Police Chief Renato Gigliotti and representatives of the Prevention Division at the Ravensburg Police Headquarters.

The collaboration focuses on prevention, teaching, research, and practical training.

The goal of both institutions is to foster even closer cooperation, particularly in the degree programs in Social Work, Applied Psychology, Business Psychology, and Media Design. The collaboration will focus on the areas of prevention, teaching, research, and practical training. Prevention topics such as sexual violence, media safety, safety in public and digital spaces, as well as the prevention of extremism and addiction will form the core focus of the collaboration. These will be implemented, for example, through joint courses, mutual exchanges of practical experience and job shadowing, as well as through joint participation in research projects, project groups, and working groups.

Joint Course with the Baden-Württemberg Police Academy

As part of a pilot project, plans call for designing and offering a joint course on the topic of “Cooperation Between the Police and Social Work” as part of a required elective. The intention is to open this course to both students at RWU and students at the Baden-Württemberg Police Academy. The main content will focus on deepening understanding of the respective roles, strengthening interprofessional collaboration, and testing concrete opportunities for cooperation and collaboration in the areas of prevention, intervention, and aftercare.

Representatives from the cooperating degree programs at RWU, as well as members of the Rector’s Office, were present at the signing ceremony. “We see a need among young people to engage with the topic of safety,” said Vice Rector Barbara Niersbach. “This is also a great signal to society.”

“We encounter the same people, often in the same crises, just at different times”

Police Chief Renato Gigliotti emphasizes the shared objective: “Policing, psychology, and social work are interconnected. The many overlaps in responsibilities require a form of knowledge management that allows us to think outside the box, because for the police, the following applies: We don’t just enforce the law; we are an active part of prevention and thus part of a societal preventive mechanism. We encounter the same people, often in the same crises, just at different times and with different tools.

Shared knowledge and a shared understanding form the foundation for trust-based cooperation—and this is where we want to set an example.”