Unite! is guest at Wroclaw Tech
Members of all Unite! partner universities visit the new partner in Poland
2022/09/09
Wrocław University of Science and Technology (Wroclaw Tech), which together with the Graz University of Technology (TU Graz) have recently joined the Unite! alliance, hosted the last meeting of representatives of all Unite! Steering Committee. This body of the alliance integrates the so-called Key Liaison Officers (KLO) along with their deputies, and it is responsible for the coordination and continuous development of the alliance, as well as for cooperation between the partner universities, comprising the representatives from all partners.
“This meeting will also help to finalise the process of fully integrating our new member universities into our alliance (The University of Technology in Graz and Wrocław University of Science and Technology), as well as to start our work on the next phase of Unite!, for which Unite! received funding from the European Commission in July this year.” – says Andreas Winkler, Secretary General of the Unite!
Professor Arkadiusz Wojs, the President of Wroclaw Tech, said he was “very pleased that September’s Unite! Steering Committee is taking place in Wrocław, as it’s an excellent opportunity to introduce Wrocław University of Science and Technology to all the partners, now that the process of connecting our university to the alliance is coming to an end”.
In November this year it is planned that both Graz University of Technology and Wrocław University of Science and Technology will become full members of the alliance and thus fully involved in the development of the European University concept promoted by Unite! “It will be then that the new university alliance development project funded by the European Commission with a total budget of more than 14.5 million euros will be launched” explains Arkadiusz Wojs.
In addition to the above topics, the participants discussed current issues related to the building of individual spheres of integration, such as the virtual campus, internal communication within the alliance, and the development of coherent foundations of curricula.
Unite!/mho
The European Universities Initiative
The European Universities Initiative was launched in 2019 to push for the establishment of a European Education Area by 2025. European Universities are transnational alliances of higher education institutions from across the EU that share a long-term strategy, promoting European values and identity. The initiative is designed to significantly strengthen student and staff mobility and to foster the quality, inclusion and competitiveness of European higher education.
In response to a first call of the Erasmus+ Programme in 2019, the first 17 alliances were selected for a 3-year pilot phase to lay the foundations for future European universities. Unite! has been among these first 17. Another 24 alliances followed in the 2nd call in 2020.
Unite!’s new funding starting end of 2022 falls into the calls of the further roll out of the European Universities Initiative. It plans to increase the number of European Universities to 60 with more than 500 universities by mid-2024, supported under Erasmus+ with an indicative budget of EUR 1.1 billion for the period 2021-2027. The aim is to develop and share a common long-term structural, sustainable and systemic cooperation on education, research and innovation, creating European inter-university campuses where students, staff and researchers from all parts of Europe can enjoy seamless mobility and create new knowledge together, across countries and disciplines.”