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United Universities 4th Panel Discussion

Europe, 11 May 2021. European University Alliances are coming with a great promise: to make the ‘student-centred’ university happen, and to create courses and degrees for the 21st century.

As of today, there are 41 of these new alliances or networks across Europe testing co-operative models and involving students, researchers and administration. The European Commission funds these co-operations, and the newly created departments in the universities put them into practice.

4th UUU Panel Debate: “Degree design, competence frameworks, and horizontal mindsets

Watch the teaser: youtu.be/RYk4iSzYPSk

We have gathered for the 4th UUU Panel Debate to see how that actually works! – There is great demand in society to create quality jobs for many, a perspective for citizens of Europe, and an education preparing for a globalised world. What do the efforts look like that the University Alliances put into study programmes for people with a ‘horizontal’ mindset, able to think and work across academic disciplines and national borderlines?

Let’s also ask how education policy evolves – in order to support such a highly complex practice, to create competence frameworks and quality assurance standards coping with diverging national regulations and an uneven economic and cultural pace across the European Union!

Guests

Robert Wagenaar, Professor of History and Politics of Higher Education, Director of the International Tuning Academy in Groningen, and author of “REFORM! TUNING the Modernisation Process of Higher Education in Europe. A blueprint for student-centred learning” (2019)

Antonella Forlino, Professor of Biochemistry, and Prorector of International Relations at the University of Pavia, member of the EC2U Alliance. ESNA interview on Deutschlandradio,15.06.2020

François Taddei, Director of the Center for Research and Interdisciplinarity (CRI) in Paris, advisor to the CIRCLE.U alliance, and author of “Learning in the 21st century” (2020). ESNA interview, 30.03.2020

Maria Gravari-Barbas, former Vice-President for International Relations at Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne, and Chair of the Cultural Heritage Focus Area of the Una Europa alliance

Host: Tino Brömme, ESNA European Higher Education News, www.esna.tv

 

Credits

‘The Graduate’ CREDITS: Embassy Pictures (1967). Cast: Anne Bancroft, Dustin Hoffman, Katharine Ross. Director: Mike Nichols. Producer: Lawrence Turman. Screenwriters: Calder Willingham, Buck Henry

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Event Project News Video

United Universities 3rd Panel Discussion

Europe, 13 April 2021. Mingling among journalists, authors, strategy advisors, university administrators, researchers, students — to gain deeper insights into higher education policy in Europe. The initiative ‘United Universities of Europe’ has gathered distinguished guests to discuss the current state of European University Alliances, their recent past and imminent future.

This 3rd UUU Panel Debate navigates between past and future. What’s the status quo of European University Alliances? What did they achieve so far? How did Corona and Brexit affect them? What are their current challenges? What will the future look like for them? Will they change the European higher education landscape or disappear?

Journalist Tino Brömme from Berlin, and higher ed strategist Peter van der Hijden from Brussels, discuss it. A special light on the damage inflicted by Brexit on British and Continental universities is being cast by journalist Anne Corbett, Paris, and Nenad Zrnić, vice-rector of the University of Belgrade.

What does the future hold? — Pedro Marques talks about his research on university-society interaction in science-fiction literature, and European students reflect on their utopia of the future university, before Brömme/van der Hijden consider what the upcoming decisions of the European Council mean for European Universities.

Guests:

Anne Corbett is a Senior Associate at LSE Consulting with long-standing experience in the field of higher education and Europe as a researcher, a journalist and a contributor to public policy. She holds a PhD in political science and a BA in History. Her work has appeared in the education press and British dailies. She continues to write for University World News where she recently published A mercantilist approach to higher education post-Brexit. Her books include Universities and the Europe of Knowledge.

Pedro Marques is specialised in regional development, innovation and governance in peripheral regions of the EU. He works at ingenio, a research institute affiliated with the Technical University of Valencia, a member of the European University Alliance ENHANCE. Not only is he a Ramon y Cajal fellow but also a principal investigator in a Innovative Training Network funded by the European Union. He is co-author of the research paper Fiction lagging behind or non-fiction defending the indefensible? University-industry (et al.) interaction in science fiction.

Peter van der Hijden is an independent strategy advisor, helping European University Alliances on the design and further strategic positioning of their proposals. He has worked for the European Commission where his main experience lied in higher education and research: the Erasmus Programme, the modernisation agenda for universities, the European Higher Education Area (Bologna Process) and the European Research Area. His latest article, Mitigating brain drain by connecting universities, discusses a policy report of the European Commission.

Nenad Zrnić is Vice-Rector for International Relations at the University of Belgrade, a member of the European University Alliance Circle U. He is a full professor in the field of material handling and logistics, a corresponding member of the Academy of Engineering Sciences of Serbia. Since 2015 he is a coordinator of one of the working groups for preparing new Serbian Law on a Higher Education.

As part of the 3rd UUU Panel Debate, students of the Una Europa alliance were interviewed about the question: How is your ideal university of the future? They had just participated in Una Europa’s first Student Congress on February 24, 2021. — Their answers showed how aware today’s students are of flexible learning paths, of the world’s ever stronger interconnections and of their own potential to contribute to better learning and teaching environments? The participants are Emily Hartmann (Freie Universität Berlin), Giacomo Zanni (Università di Bologna), Hubert Jakub Bieniek (Uniwersytet Jagielloński), Luca Di Cunto (Università di Bologna), and Weronika Łukasińska (Uniwersytet Jagielloński).

Host:

Tino Brömme, a graduate in communication science and media consultancy, has worked for over 30 years as a journalist, publisher, moderator and event manager across Europe. He was the founder of the multilingual student magazine WORK|OUT, and the news agency ESNA. He publishes articles and multimedia content, mainly on science policy, and is currently preparing a documentary film about Universities in the 21st Century.

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Interview Video

United Universities – Is it science fiction?

Berlin and Valencia, 5 March 2021. Science fiction literature is a classic field for scientists to ask self-referential questions. A recent study follows this path, and Tino Brömme, host of the UUU Debate series, interrogates Pedro Marques about the paper he wrote as a co-author of Joaquín Azagra and Laura Salmerón.

This is interesting for an audience curious about spirit and knowledge, and in particular, about European University Alliances, those new, EU-funded university networks set up as experimental cross-border social laboratories.

ENHANCE is one of these European University Alliances, it includes the Universitat Politècnica de València, to which Pedro’s research is affiliated. How does society value science? How do citizens see the University? How does literature, as a segment of public perception, depict researchers? Are they in it only for money, fame and power? Are universities ivory towers of an arrogant elite? Do scientists work for the public good? — European University Alliances like ENHANCE are forced by the EU’s funding requirements to claim that they are working “for society” —, but how true is that?

The interview is part of the UUU Panel Debate series started in 2020 at the Berlin Science Week. It has been produced by ESNA European Higher Education News, moderated by Tino Brömme, recorded and edited by Tomas Rigoni, provided with a soundtrack by Ralf Briechle, and supervised by Caucaso Factory (www.caucaso.info) and StartupTV (www.startuptv.io).

Teaser

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Project News Video

UUU Panel 2 – Intermezzo: What is UUU?

Berlin, 8 December 2020. UUU director Tino Brömme, in an interview on the Crelle Market in Berlin-Schöneberg, answers what United Universities if Europe or UUU is about. The interview is part of the 2nd panel debate inquiring on “Vocations and Competencies in the Age of European Universities.”

Watch part 1 of the panel debate here, and part 2 here.

Guests:

  • Eva-Maria Feichtner, YUFE, Universität Bremen
    Vice President International and Diversity
  • Jörg Niehoff, European Commission, DG EAC
    Policy Coordinator University Business cooperation
  • Peter van der Hijden, higher education strategy advisor
  • Nadine Shovakar, Universität Potsdam, EDUC Project Manager
  • Katrine Moland Hansen, Universitetet i Bergen, Local ARQUS Alliance Coordinator
  • Magdalena Sikorska, Politechnika Poznańska, EUNICE Project Officer
  • Thibaut Skrzypek, EELISA, École des Ponts ParisTech, Work Package Leader
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News Video

UUU Panel 1 – Intermezzo with higher ed news

Berlin, 3 November 2020. This intermission is part of the first UUU online debate, organised by ESNA Higher Education News, as part of the Berlin Science Week 2020. The lead question is: “United Universities of Europe? How European University Alliances transform higher ed”

See the first half of the UUU panel debate here, the second half here. During this intermission, UUU Director Tino Brömme addresses the following important European higher education news:

EU top court finds Hungary education law in violation of EU rules
curia.europa.eu/…

EU budget 2021 Rapporteur on hunger strike for climate, health and jobs and for the introduction of a financial transaction tax
multimedia.europarl.europa.eu/…

How scientists are preparing for the split
media.nature.com/…

Paris student rent more costly than London – report
thepienews.com/news/…