13 ABR 2023 - 13:52 CET

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 Welcome to Una.Update – your one-stop shop for the latest internal Una Europa news and information.

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Presenting the Una Europa 2030 Strategy

Last week saw the launch of the Una Europa 2030 Strategy, the culmination of a year-long consultation with our community of students, academics and professional staff to set our course for the future, together. Rooted in our Manifesto, the Strategy sharpens our collective focus on the opportunities and challenges that matter most as we move through the decade ahead:

• Our six Institutional Drivers will further our development as an alliance, enhancing our connection to our values, our collaborative activities locally and globally, and our sustainability as an institution.
• Our three Strategic Pillars will advance our ambition of creating a truly inter-university and pan-European campus, shaped by universities’ universal and fundamentally interwoven obligations to society: research and innovation, teaching and learning, and societal outreach.

With our shared values at our core, united in diversity, we will rise to meet the challenges of the decade before us and work together to shape our shared future for the better.

Read the Una Europa 2030 Strategy in full

Save the date! Register for the General Assembly at Universiteit Leiden

The countdown is on to our first General Assembly of 2023 and the Una.Futura project, hosted by Universiteit Leiden 7 – 9 June 2023. Registration will open on or around 11 April with the deadline closing at the end of April. Mark your calendars and make sure you register in time to feel the energy of the Una Europa community in person!

Pre-final calendar of meetings taking place at the General Assembly in Leiden

Sari Lindblom: "No policy initiative within research-intensive universities can be sustainable without researchers perceiving clear added value."

University of Helsinki Rector Sari Lindblom wrote an opinion piece published by Times Higher Education representing the voice of Una Europa research and innovation. In the piece Sari highlights the need for a more bottom-up approach to transnational collaboration in research, ensuring researchers perceive the clear added value in their involvement. She writes, “a paradigm shift is needed, from top-down funding instruments to more bottom-up collaborative opportunities. To be a true incentive for deep, long-term research collaboration in a transnational context, these opportunities must have as wide a scope as possible and allow for interdisciplinary research perspectives. Such investigator-driven collaborations are the very foundation of innovation in Europe.”

Read the full piece on the THE website

We have lift off! ED-AFFICHE kick-off meeting

On 28 March members of the ambitious transnational ED-AFFICHE project came together for the first time to connect and renew their commitment to pilot the European Degree label and remove hurdles to creating joint degrees. The project is coordinated by Una Europa and involves partners from six European University Alliances, 51 higher education institutes and 22 countries.

Find out more about the ED-AFFICHE project

Meeting minutes

Virtual meeting of Board of Directors and Research Strategy Group, 29 March

• Presentation of Una Europa 2030 Strategy and its links with the Research & Innovation Strategy and other strategies under development
• Update on EU Research & Innovation policy and funding context
• Presentation and discussion on draft Research & Innovation Strategy and priorities
• Presentation on External Funding Strategy in support of Research & Innovation Strategy
• Presentation and discussion on internal commitments required to deliver Research & Innovation Strategy, including permanent establishment of the Research Coordination Cluster
• Discussion and decision on terminology in relation to inter-, multi- and trans-disciplinarity and the Early-career Researcher
• Presentation and discussion on opportunities under EIT Culture & Creativity.

Una Europa Teaching & Learning Strategy Group, 24 March

• Presentations on the role and responsibilities of the Teaching & Learning Strategy Group in relation to the Una Europa alliance and its projects
• Review and discussion of the Transversal Theme on Student-Centred and Research-Driven Teaching and Learning Informed by Cultural and Linguistic Awareness (developed by UH), with a focus on its working draft documents of a Vision and Action Plan
• Overview of the European Degree policy initiative and the ED-AFFICHE project
• Armen Edigarian (Vice-Rector for Educational Affairs, Jagiellonian University) confirmed as Chair of the Teaching & Learning Strategy Group

Una.Resin Project Steering Committee, 16 March

• Received update on the Una Europa Research and Innovation Strategy. A draft document has since been shared with the Board/RSG for consideration and feedback at their meeting on 29 March
• Update on WP3 Pilots on Team Science and Open Research led by JU
• Briefings on project’s communication and dissemination plans in relation to visibility at the Leiden General Assembly in June and final dissemination meeting in Brussels in November 2022