Meeting at the UAB to prepare candidacy for "European University" project

On 17 and 18 January, the UAB hosted an international meeting of the European Consortium of Innovative Universities (ECIU) network, with students and lecturers from the UAB, representatives of collaborating organisations and the ECIU work team consisting of 10 universities, to prepare their proposal for the new "European University", an important initiative organised by the European Commission aimed at building transnational university structures in upcomming years.

16/01/2019

The UAB, alongside the rest of ECIU universities, proposes a plan for the new European University model which includes the participation of the industry, public organisations, society, academics, and current and future students.

The European Commission has opened the “European University” call, an initiative created to build transnational university structures among universities of the European Union with the aim of fostering mobility, innovative higher education training, the generation of more work projects to be conducted jointly by the participating univerisities, as well as a greater relation between the production, administration and social fabrics of the universities' surroundings. In this first call, five million euros will be allocated to six different projects lasting three years each.

The UAB participates in this initiative through the “European Consortium of Innovative Universities (ECIU)” network, of which it has been a member for 20 years. The ECIU universities have been working for over six months now on the proposal which will be presented at the end of February.

With the aim of discovering the different agents which could become involved in the initiative, an international seminar took place at the UAB on Thursday 17 January with with students and lecturers from the UAB, representatives of collaborating organisations and the ECIU work team consisting of 10 universities, to prepare their proposal. The seminar took place on Thursday morning at the Faculty of Education and continued on Friday.

The initial ideas to develop the new European University were discussed in the ECIU meeting held in Vilnius, Lithuania, at the start of April 2018 and team members have been working on the proposal since then. Close collaboration with society, public institutions and the industry can be found at the core of each of the ECIU university members. Therefore, the model for a new European University will be co-created with the industry, public institutions, society, academics, and current and future students.

ECIU, a 12-Member Network

The European Consoritum of Innovative Universities (ECIU) is a network comprised of 12 European member universities and one affiliated member in Mexico. All members share the same profile of being key actors in their region's system of innovation and the commitment to develop high quality education programmes which promote innovation and research of excellence in teaching and learning. The ECIU share many common experiences and a joint vision of the future of European universities.

In addition to the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, the ECIU network is formed by Aalborg University, Denmark; University of Aveiro, Portugal; Dublin City University, Ireland; Hamburg University of Technology, Germany; Linköping University, Sweden; Kaunas University of Technology, Lithuania; University of Nottingham, UK; University of Stavanger, Norway; University of Trento, Italy; University of Tampere, Finland; Univeristy of Twente, the Netherlands; and Monterrey Institute of Technology, Mexico.