Since its launch in the winter semester 2022/23, lecturers at TUM have developed more than 100 innovative project weeks. These initiatives allow students to engage in collaborative, interdisciplinary and hands-on learning experiences.
“Project-based learning enables instructors to use carefully chosen tasks to highlight perspectives that go beyond individual disciplines and help foster an understanding of other fields. At the same time, it offers a space to critically examine how new technologies might transform value-creation processes and serves as a testing ground for cross-location and interdisciplinary teaching formats. It’s great to see how creatively and diversely the format has been implemented.” – Prof. Gerhard Müller, Senior Vice President for Academic and Student Affairs
Source: Fair of Ideas – Insights into Over 40 Interdisciplinary Future Projects
Part of this year’s program was the MoralPLai project, led by Dr. Franziska Poszler. Together with seminar participants, student interns, volunteers and the core MoralPLai team, the project was showcased at the Fair of Ideas on April 30, 2025, from 12:00 pm to 4:00 pm in the Enrollment Hall at the TUM Main Campus, joining over 40 diverse project displays.
As part of the event, Dr. Poszler also presented two teaching initiatives developed within the MoralPLai framework:
- The seminar “(SOT87318) Project Week: AI Ethics Research & Creative Science Communication”
- A series of student research internships running from September 2024 to July 2025
Seminar on “AI Ethics Research & Creative Science Communication”
October 2024 to February 2025
The seminar introduced students to key concepts in moral psychology, ethics in AI, qualitative research methods and creative science communication techniques, with a particular focus on research-based theater. Students conducted their own investigations into selected topics on AI ethics and translated their findings into artistic formats of their choice. A total of 13 students from diverse disciplines worked together in interdisciplinary teams. Their final projects included a research-based podcast, AI-generated music, an interactive story, a documentary film and a theater script.
“My goal was to create a seminar that highlights interdisciplinarity, the significance of science communication and offer an engaging and innovative alternative to existing study modules that allows to ‘learn by heart’ about the topic of AI ethics.” – Dr. Franziska Poszler
Internships for 12 students & volunteers
September 2024 to July 2025
In addition, under the guidance of Dr. Poszler and Anastasia Aritzi, a further 12 selected students and volunteers are engaged in research internships that directly integrate them into the MoralPLai project. Through this immersive experience, students contribute to ongoing work on large language models (LLMs) – based chatbots and their implications for ethical decision-making, gaining valuable skills in collaborative research and public engagement.
“Working on an international, interdisciplinary and innovative project like MoralPLai is an incredible privilege. MoralPLai brings together experts from diverse fields, representing institutions such as the Technical University of Munich, the University of Notre Dame and metaLAB (at) Harvard & FU Berlin and already has the support of many important institutions such as the Notre Dame-IBM Tech Ethics Lab, the Friedrich-Schiedel-Fellowship Program at the TUM Think Tank and the TUM School of Social Sciences and Technology, the TUM Global Incentive Fund, the Tuition Substitution Funds, the Klaus Tschira Foundation as well as the TUM Center for Culture and Arts (CCA).
Equally important is that Dr. Poszler has successfully built a vibrant ecosystem around the project, not only launching two interdisciplinary teaching initiatives at TUM but also actively engaging 25 students and volunteers. These initiatives foster hands-on learning, encourage critical dialog around AI and ethics, and create meaningful opportunities for students to contribute directly to the development and dissemination of the project’s core ideas.” –Anastasia Aritzi
At the Fair of Ideas, the MoralPLai team welcomed visitors to their booth, where they provided deeper insight into the project and extended a special invitation to attend the upcoming theatrical performance titled “The Third Voice”, the artistic output of the project, which will be followed by a panel discussion.
More information about TUM Project Weeks: https://www.tum.de/en/studies/degree-programs/key-skill-programs/project-weeks.
Visit the MoralPLai Project webpage to learn more: https://www.ieai.sot.tum.de/research/moralplai/.
Have a peek at this year’s Messe der Idee and MoralPLai’s participation.
Click to explore the MoralPLai poster, showcased during the 2025 Fair of Ideas.
