The Institute of Educational Studies is endeavour to cultivate inernational and intercultural relations and to integrate these into research and teaching and to create an open-minded environmet of working, learning and living. This endevaour is confirmed by traditions of Educational Studies in Jena, e.g. the internationality of the important educationalist Wilhelm Rein (1847 – 1929) who kept up contact to educationalists from all over the world and who worked as mediator of international modells and encouragements in theory and practice of German pedagogics. Today, the Institute is able to base on international relations which were approached and built up with universities from Middle and Eastern Europe in the last decades. New connections to Great Britain, the Netherlands, Norway, the USA and China can be added. There were foreign scientists (Byelorussia, Slowakia, Hungary and Norway) present at the new foundation of the Institute at 8/11/1993 what could have be seen as a sign for the convenient international conditions for the new developments after 1989.

The Institute makes efforts on an internationalization of students (cf. Studying abroad) and – basically – of lecturers. Beside the SOCRATES-students there are/were also students and doctorands from non-European countries (among them also a graduate scholarship holder from Taiwan and a doctorand from Mozambique) at the Institute. Students from Jena often have had the opportunity to study or to do a practical training abroad that extends their studies interculturally and differentiates their studies professionally.

The Institute has had numerous foreign guests within the last years. They came to Jena as single scientists, as groups or accompanied by students to inform themselves about the new developments on the scene of action. The visitors from different countries (e.g. from the USA, the Netherlands, Great Britain, Austria, South Korea, Japan, Denmark, Hungaria, and Albania) have contributed to the academic and social life at the Institute through lectures, colloquia, and reports of research. The Alexander-von-Humboldt-Stiftung (Alexander von Humboldt Foundation) supported a four-week research stay in Jena in May 1995 for an expert of Comparative Education from Korea, Prof. Dr. Kyu Hwan Lee from the ‘Ewha Womanïs University’ of Seoul'.
Emphasis should also be given to the visit of Prof. Dr. Suresh Ghosh from New Delhi, India who offered lectures on ‘education and culture nowadays as well as in the history of India’ in SS 2000 and in WS 2000/2001.
Besides, the Institute often gives away teaching assignments to foreign experts (on application), e.g. in the field of Adult Education to professors from Great Britain. Several projects of research have foreign partners for cooperation, and members of the Institute publish about questions of international and intercultural education as well as of foreign-pedagogical and comparative topics, partially, at home and, partially, abroad. Scientists of our Institute regularly inform themselves on the development of educational studies in other countries during their contact and research trips.

A cooperation between students of Jena, Budapest and Cracow, which has been carried through und always elaborated in the recent years, has to be mentioned too. This project is operating by means of an Internet platform, which allows collegiate research in the field of Adult Education over the borders of the involved countries.

In view of the increasing internationalization and globalization of communication, of science, of labour markets and of living conditions, the Institute sees a special task in a further expansion of the internationality of teaching, research, and further education within Educational Studies in Jena.