Facilitation for complex collaboration: co-creating better ways of working together

Across the CIVIS alliance, we collaborate across borders, disciplines, cultures, and organisational systems. We design and deliver transnational learning formats, coordinate committees, and work with societal partners. This work is intellectually rich and socially meaningful — and it requires clarity, trust, participation, and shared ownership.

Ensuring  these aspects and thereby facilitating the collaboration may be the responsibility of a dedicated member of the group,  be it a teacher in a class, the chair of a committee, the principle investigator in joined research project. Alternatively, facilitation tasks can be shared across the members of group to ensure the success of the collaboration.

This Staff Week offers a highly participatory and practice-based learning space to strengthen facilitation skills for international higher-education contexts. Rather than following a fixed curriculum, participants will co-create the learning journey and experience facilitation as a shared responsibility — in the same spirit needed for European university cooperation.

• reflect on core facilitation principles for HE collaboration;
• experience and analyze group dynamics in real time;
• practice micro-facilitation and receive peer feedback;
• develop practical tools to support commitment, clarity, and participation;
• build a personal facilitation action plan for CIVIS settings.

The programme combines:

• short theoretical impulses;
• practice labs & micro-facilitation exercises;
• reflection on participation, trust, and group dynamics;
• peer-coaching on real cases from CIVIS work;
• a collaboratively designed learning plan;
• a half-day Open Space to practice facilitation in real conditions. 

Participants will learn by doing — experiencing facilitation, practicing it, and reflecting together on what enables effective cooperation.

As a higher education developer and facilitator at the University of Tübingen, Manuel Halseband specializes in designing and facilitating collaborative processes in teaching, learning, and organizational contexts. He has extensive experience supporting international and interdisciplinary cooperation and helping diverse groups navigate complexity, participation, and shared decision-making. His professional background is complemented by qualifications in systemic and agile organizational development, coaching, and Theme-Centred Interaction (TCI). His work combines practical facilitation methods with a deep understanding of group dynamics, learning processes, and organizational change.