This edition of the magazine regina has been produced especially for the International Women’s University GmbH Hanover (ifu).

The ifu pilot project ran from 15. July until 15. October 2000 in Hanover and at a number of other locations in Germany (Bremen, Clausthal, Hamburg, Kassel and Suderburg). As a virtual university, ifu continues to exist in the Internet www.vifu.de. Six project areas were included under the overall heading of “Technology and Culture:” Water, Work, Body, Migration, Information and City". The general heading of Art was used as an interface with the individual disciplines and a means of promoting dialogue between them.

regina’s ‘Special Issue ifu’ was commissioned by ifu’s Arts Committee. Ute Meta Bauer, Leonie Baumann, Adrienne Goehler, Barbara Kisseler, Helga Schuchardt, Sabine Vogel, Dorothee Wenner, and the president of the ifu, Prof. Dr.-Ing. Ayla Neusel.

The magazine focuses on the themes included within the framework of ifu’s program and its individual project areas. regina is not so much concerned with scientific and academic discourse as with the need for more practical applications. That means that regina has consciously also invited women who are neither teachers nor students at colleges of further education to contribute to the individual areas from the point of view of their own professional and work experience.

regina is not intended as an academic treatise nor as a documentary about ifu itself: It was a challenge to integrate an academic pilot project into the format of a women’s fashion magazine. regina’s interest in and curiosity about ifu was determined by the need to find ways to develop new structures of information and mediation from conventional and traditional university and academic structures which are more suitable not only to contemporary and progressive discourse but also to working practices. regina’s ‘Special Issue ifu’ is a contribution to that debate.

Regina (Maria) Möller, 2000