Intern Abroad

• PhD candidate for Marketing
• New Zealand, Dunedin and New Zealand, Christchurch
• University of Otago and University of Canterbury
• 02/2026 – 04/2026

Preparation and organization of the stay

My stay in New Zealand grew out of my own research interests. My work focuses on how companies communicate technological novelty, specifically, how linguistic framing shapes the acceptance of novel technologies. One Professor’s research at the University of Otago on market-led innovation and consumer communication was therefore a natural complement to my own work. Once I reached out to her, the collaboration came together quickly, and the planning developed from there.

One point I would emphasize from the beginning: I organized my stay on shorter notice than I would recommend. Ideally, planning should start at least eight months in advance. There is more to coordinate than it may first appear, and one detail that can easily catch people off guard is the structure of the academic year in New Zealand. It runs in the opposite rhythm to the European academic year: the semester begins in February, while the southern hemisphere summer falls in December and January. If the aim is to be integrated into semester activities (which, in my view, is where the real value of a stay like this lies), it is important to time the arrival accordingly and work backwards from local course schedules and invitation deadlines.

For accommodation, I would recommend checking with the university to see if there are student apartments available. Due to my time of arrival, I opted for AirBnB.

First steps after arrival in host country

My stay began in Christchurch, where I visited the University of Canterbury (UC) before continuing to Dunedin. At UC, I met with my supervising professor, whose research on health communication, including how institutions communicated with the public during the Covid-19 pandemic, opened up a rich conversation with direct relevance to my own work on framing and the communication of novelty. It was a thought-provoking start to the trip and a valuable reminder of how questions of framing, communication, and acceptance travel across different domains.

From Christchurch, I made my way to Dunedin and the University of Otago, the oldest university in New Zealand, founded in 1869. The campus reflects this history beautifully: historic buildings, green lawns along the Leith River, and a strong sense of academic tradition. The research group around my supervising professor welcomed me warmly from the very beginning. I was quickly included in departmental life through seminars, group meetings, and informal exchanges, and within the first week I already felt genuinely part of the community. My Airbnb near the beach was the perfect base: compact, cozy, and close to the ocean. I made very good use of that throughout my stay.

Academic/professional experience

The academic core of my time at Otago was built around two formats. First, I co-led workshops and seminars in the course “Market-Led Innovation” at the Otago Business School, in which students develop their own innovation ideas and business models through an iterative, workshop-based process. I contributed content and coaching drawing on the work of the WIN group and the RWTH Entrepreneurship Center, guiding students from early stage idea through market logic and business model development. What struck me throughout was how universal the core tensions of entrepreneurship are and how much context shapes the answers. Woven into the course were industry talks from New Zealand and international companies, among them ZURU, a globally successful consumer goods company that built its reach from New Zealand outward. A compelling illustration that market driven innovation can work from almost anywhere, and an example I’ve already brought back into my own teaching. Second, I delivered a research seminar for staff and postgraduate students, presenting my paper “Framing Novelty in Innovation – Exploring the Role of Linguistic Framing in the Acceptance of Novel Technologies.” This connects directly to what had drawn me to my supervising professor’s work in the first place: we are both interested in how novelty is communicated and received, approaching it from adjacent angles. The discussion that followed was dense and substantive, and the marketing science perspective I took away has fed back directly into my research.

Financing

New Zealand is not a cheap destination. Rent is the largest fixed cost. For a private place, one should expect to pay around NZD 1,500–2,000 per month, depending on location and
standard. Student accommodation may be cheaper, especially if the timing of the stay aligns well with the academic year, but this needs to be checked early.

Day-to-day living costs are more manageable if you cook for yourself. Supermarkets are well stocked, and grocery prices are reasonable overall. One practical tip: make sure your accommodation has a proper kitchen. Eating out regularly becomes expensive quickly, although that is also true in Germany.

Flights are the other major expense and should be planned and booked as early as possible. In addition, I had to account for visa-related fees, international health insurance, and local transport. Overall, the budget is manageable, but it is important to go in with realistic numbers.

One very positive surprise was the coffee culture. The coffee in New Zealand is excellent and, in many places, significantly cheaper than in Germany. I have rarely encountered such a high density of wonderful cafés.

Leisure/ cultural experience, insider tips

Dunedin is a wonderful base for a longer stay. The city is compact, the pace is relaxed, and the community feels genuine and open. I got to know local surfers at St Clair Beach, found
great places to dance, stayed active, and spent a lot of time outdoors hiking, camping, and exploring. The Otago Peninsula alone is worth the trip. It offers wildlife, dramatic coastlines, and some of the best short walks I have done anywhere. Beyond Dunedin, New Zealand is made for road trips. I drove, hiked, and camped across the South Island, and I have never experienced another country where the landscapes shift so constantly and dramatically, from fiords to alpine passes to open coastline.

If you have sufficient time, use it. The distances are manageable, and the rewards are invaluable. Classic New Zealand experiences, such as a night in a backcountry hut, waking up to mist over a lake, or driving through scenery so beautiful that you have to stop the car, are all within reach on weekends.

What added value did the stay have for my studies/career prospects?

Working within a genuinely different academic system with a different teaching culture, different industry relationships, and a different relationship between university research and market application has expanded the way I think about innovation education and what it means to support people on the path from idea to venture.

The workshop-based teaching approach I taught at Otago has given me concrete methods and formats that I can bring directly into coaching and workshop settings at RWTH. The
industry examples from companies that have built global reach from a small and geographically remote market are immediately useful in conversations with RWTH students and researchers, especially when they assume that geography is a major constraint.

In that sense, the stay has value beyond my own professional development. The insights I gained can help me support students and researchers more effectively in translating ideas into viable innovation projects. This is particularly relevant in a university environment like RWTH, where many promising ideas originate in science and engineering but need support in becoming understandable, market-oriented, and socially relevant.

To what extent does my stay abroad have a sustainable character?

My supervising professor and I are exploring expanding our collaboration in teaching, which creates a recurring point of connection between the University of Otago and RWTH Aachen. The conversations at the University of Canterbury also opened up a complementary line of research exchange.

More broadly, the methods, examples, and perspectives I brought back will continue to shape my teaching, coaching, and research at RWTH for the foreseeable future. Three months of genuine integration into a department builds relationships, routines, and ways of thinking that do not disappear once the stay ends.

Conclusion

If you are considering a research stay abroad and New Zealand is on your radar: go. The RWTH Research Ambassador Scholarship creates a valuable opportunity to step outside your usual academic environment, work in a genuinely different research and teaching culture, and return with perspectives and skills that are difficult to develop at home.

For me, the stay at the University of Otago was academically productive, professionally enriching, and personally memorable. It strengthened my research, expanded my teaching repertoire, and created new opportunities for international collaboration. At the same time, it allowed me to act as a representative of RWTH abroad and to contribute, in a concrete way, to strengthening international academic relationships.

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