IFHE Congress 2024

Felix and I took part in the 25th World Congress of the International Federation of Home Economics 2024. There we had the opportunity to exchange ideas with people from all over the world, for example from Japan, America and the Philippines. Particularly valuable was the dialogue with people who are administratively involved in the IFHE, such as former IFHE President Gwendoly Hevstett from Texas, who gave us an insight into the largest international organization for home economics.

An important part of our participation was the FOSTER (Founds for students research) grant that we received. The program is part of the Excellence Strategy and FOSTER promotes student research and gives it visibility. With the financial support of the Foster Scholarship, we were not only able to attend the conference, but also to realize and present our own research project. This opened up numerous new perspectives for us and we were also able to gain practical experience.

The IFHE Junior Forum, which was also part of the congress, offered a dedicated platform for young scientists and students. The networking events, where we were able to make new international contacts, were particularly inspiring. For example, we had intensive conversations with students and young researchers from Asia and North America, which could lead to future collaborations and joint projects. The Junior Forum showed us how important international exchange is for our discipline, how much we can learn from each other and how broad the fields of research in household science are.