Arqus will participate in the plenary session on the future of European University Alliances at the EPICUR Forum and Festival 2021

On 26th November at 2:30 pm CET, Arqus will be participating in the closing session of the 2nd Annual EPICUR Forum named “The Future of European University Alliances. Challenges & Perspectives of Enlargement”, together with EU-Conexus, EUTOPIA and Unite.

For this second edition, the theme of the Forum is “Innovation and Inclusion”. Conferences, discussions and workshops will address this theme in an interdisciplinary and intercultural way.

A discussion between 5 European University Alliances

The third day of the Forum will be dedicated to the discussion on the future of European Universities with representatives of Arqus, EPICUR, EU-Conexus, EUTOPIA and Unite Alliances as well as senior representatives of the Directorate-General for Education and Culture.

The closing plenary session entitled “The future of European University Alliances” will take place on 26th November from 2:30 to 4:15 pm CET. It will discuss the challenges and perspectives of enlargement in the roll-out phase with a specific reflection on their potential impact on the key transformational actions of different European University Alliances (such as joint degrees, certification or a virtual platform).

Currently, only 5% of all European higher education institutions are involved as full partners (279 HEIs) and the EC ambition is to reach 10% from all European regions. Central and Eastern European universities are particularly underrepresented in European University Alliances and Alliances are encouraged to share the outcomes of their actions with associated partners through mutually beneficial cooperation. However, enlargement is indeed not a self-fulfilling prophecy: new partnerships aim to strengthen the standardisation of processes and the procedures on a European level, to enrich interdisciplinary, inclusive and innovative teaching and learning formats as well as develop new tools. Therefore, cooperation with external partners is key for enhancing European integration and writing a new page on the success story of the European University Alliance initiative.

After an introduction by top-level representatives of the European Commission as well as Michel Deneken, President of the University of Strasbourg and the EPICUR Alliance, it will be presented the strategical vision behind the EPICUR Inter-University platform, a key deliverable of the EPICUR Alliance, by Nikolaos Papaioannou, Rector of Aristotle University of Thessaloniki and Dimitrios Koveos, Vice-Rector of Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. Afterwards, we will have a fruitful exchange on the effects of enlargement on the deepening and broadening of key deliverables for the European University alliances, including the possibility for the audience to answer questions.

To participate in this plenary session on the future of European University Alliances, please register here.

Information source.