voixAUT - Writing contest in France

2025 marks the first issue of "voixAUT", a German-language writing contest for students in France.

Students of the 12 universities taking part in the contest were asked to submit texts on the German term "KERN" (core, seed, kernel). The young writers were free to pick any genre, as long as their text was not longer than 1,000 words. Online workshops were held for the participants, with further support provided by the dedicated OeAD lectors in France.

Over 70 texts were submitted in total. The award ceremony for the contest was held at the Austrian embassy in Paris on 4 April. The winner of the jury award can look forward to a 3-week language course in Graz, while the prize for the audience award winner is a free trip to Vienna.

The OeAD lectureship programme

The OeAD lectureship programme is a mobility programme for teaching the Austrian-German language, Austrian literature and Austrian regional studies at universities abroad. Lectureships enable the establishment of sustainable relations between Austria and the host country, thus constituting an important instrument of Austrian cultural and academic education in the higher education sector abroad. Moreover, various activities and events are organised under the lectureship programme. Currently the programme has 90 locations in 30 different countries, spanning 16 time zones and 4 continents. The OeAD lectureships are also partners in the City of Vienna's international activities.

French universities taking part in the OeAD lectureship programme are in Aix-en-Provence, Bordeaux, Brest, Caen, Dijon, Montpellier, Mulhouse, Nantes, Nice, Paris, Poitiers, Rouen and Strasbourg.

Writing contest in Slovakia and the Czech Republic

As in 2024, the OeAD lectureships in the Slovak and Czech Republics will also hold a writing contest this year. As for the French students, the prize for the winning entry is a free trip to Vienna. The award ceremony is held at the Austrian Cultural Forum in Prague on 23 May.