Long-standing practice partner receives Federal Cross of Merit

On November 6, 2025, Konrad Kutt, a vocational and business education specialist from Berlin, was awarded the Cross of Merit on Ribbon of the Federal Republic of Germany.

Konrad Kutt and the Institute for Sustainability in Work and Work, and Culture (INBAK)—which he founded in 2010—served as a practical partner and source of expertise for the “Sustainable BücherboXX” initiative from 2016 to 2024, laying the foundation for the practice-oriented, two-semester class / course “Project Development/Project Study” in the Social Work degree programme at the Faculty of Social Sciences and served as a catalyst for numerous students in developing regional practical projects to repurpose former phone booths into public and open-access bookcases, from which the Sustainable BücherboXXes in Zittau, Görlitz, Zgorzelec, and Ostritz. The integration of community work—as an integral part of Social Work—with sustainable economic and ecological aspects has opened up a broad spectrum of civic participation.

The Zittau BücherboXX was—following the temporary installation of pilot BücherboXXes, for which students first conducted social space analyses and feasibility studies in Görlitz, Zittau, and in Zgorzelec, Poland, the first permanently installed street library in the region’s public space. The project’s implementation was consistently guided by the idea of involving young people as part of their vocational training and bringing them together in an interdisciplinary setting. Thus, in 2019, at the Zittau Vocational Training Center, bao GmbH Zittau, and the KIA training program at the Zittau/Görlitz University of Applied Sciences, young trainees from various trades were brought together and were able to demonstrate the skills they had learned on a special project. The Zittau BücherboXX was officially unveiled to the public at the Zittau market in late October 2019.

The campus book box on the Zittau university campus was also inspired by the idea and expertise behind the “Sustainable BücherboXX” developed by Konrad Kutt and INBAK.

The Faculty of Social Sciences and Zittau/Görlitz University of Applied Sciences congratulate Konrad Kutt on this prestigious and well-deserved award. It honors the right person.