Prof. Dr. Petra Anders receives the Communicator Preis 2025 from the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (German Research Foundation). The award, which is being presented for the first time to a didactician, is intended to strengthen the exchange between academia and the public. Petra Anders from the Institute of Educational Sciences at Humboldt-Universit?t zu Berlin (HU) receives the 2025 award for her outstanding science communication to promote reading and language skills at primary school level. The jury praised the scientist's communicative commitment, through which she facilitates dialogue with various target groups and makes a significant contribution to the education debate in Germany. The Communicator Preis is awarded annually by the DFG and the Stifterverband für die Deutsche Wissenschaft. It is endowed with 50,000 euros.
"My science communication aims to break down barriers, smooth out hierarchies and arouse enthusiasm for research topics," says Prof Anders. "The aim of my didactic research is to make the skills of children and teachers in research projects visible and describable. I take up forms of communication that promote democracy, such as poetry slams, as well as the multilingualism that exists in schools and universities in my research and teaching and am involved in collaborations with artists so that science can constructively address social change and open up new opportunities for people to express themselves."
Prof. Julia von Blumenthal, President of Humboldt-Universit?t zu Berlin: "Petra Anders is an outstanding didactician who is able to inspire her students to use language sensitively with her passion and creative use of diverse media. Petra Anders shows what modern, contemporary teaching at primary schools can look like. She is constantly bringing her work into schools and society with new, innovative and creative formats."
Petra Anders has been a professor of German teaching and didactics at primary school level at HU since 2018. She studied German, history and philosophy in G?ttingen and Vienna and worked as a teacher in Brandenburg, Baden-Württemberg and Hamburg. She completed her doctorate at the University of Bremen in 2010. After holding positions at Columbia University, New York, USA, and the HU, she was a professor at the University of Leipzig and the Free University of Berlin. In 2022, she received the HU's "Prize for Good Teaching", which honours successful and innovative teachers and teaching concepts in the context of regular teaching at the HU. Anders is also the first chairwoman of Symposion Deutschdidaktik e.V., the largest professional association for German didactics, on the board of the Berliner Stapel-Stiftung and on the advisory board of VisionKino.
Petra Anders has brought the poetry slam into schools, science and teaching, founded the Praxisschock-Slam and the Kinder-Kiez-Slam at the HU and has been leading a scientific collection on the history and present of the poetry slam since 2025. In research, teaching and school practice in primary schools, the didactician has further developed the linguistic approach of multimodality for inclusive German lessons. This gives pupils access to content not only through language, but also through images, sounds and music, as well as a wide range of opportunities to express their own ideas. In her current research project within the lernen:digital network, she encourages children and teachers to approach lyrical texts via memes and to participate in the international scratch community.
Petra Anders is also committed to anchoring films in school lessons. She has been publishing teaching materials on film education and academic essays since 2003 and, together with colleagues, has published the first introduction to film didactics for all subjects. She is also responsible for an Instagram account on German didactic university research. Here she regularly posts current projects from her field of work, especially her reading promotion projects with students at primary schools. Since 2021, her open access lecture on the introduction to German didactics has been available nationwide as an audio book.
The "Communicator-Preis – Wissenschaftspreis des Stifterverbands" is awarded by the DFG. This personal prize is endowed with 50,000 euros and is awarded to scientists or teams from all disciplines who make their scientific work and their subject area accessible to a broad audience in a particularly innovative, diverse and effective way and are thus committed to the dialogue between science and society.
The award ceremony will take place on 30 June 2025.
Further information on the award
Website of Petra Anders at the HU
Instagram accounts of Petra Anders
@primarstube.berlin
@petraandersberlin
Photo of Petra Anders, Copyright: Peter Rigaud
Contact Petra Anders
Prof. Dr Petra Anders
German language teaching and its didactics at primary level
Institute of Educational Sciences
Humboldt-Universit?t zu Berlin
Tel.: 030 2093 66986
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