The university alliance European Digital UniverCity or EDUC, funded by the European Commission, celebrates its second birthday today. The universities of Potsdam (Germany), Masaryk (Czech Republic), Pécs (Hungary), Cagliari (Italy), Paris-Nanterre (France) and Rennes 1 (France) joined forces as an alliance on October 1, 2019 to create a new form of collaboration within Europe.
EDUC connects universities and languages, different disciplines and faculties, and a wide range of students, researchers, faculty, and staff.
EDUC creates a shared, inclusive environment for people of various cultures, with diverse backgrounds and very different goals. With a focus on digitalization, the alliance creates new spaces for European exchange, support, and joint discussions. As a community, EDUC is developing new ways and opportunities to tackle problems of the future together. Inclusion, mobility, networking, and exchange are top priorities for EDUC.
In doing so, the alliance is constantly evolving. Over its short period of existence to date, it was able to expand its scope by adding the additional project EDUC-SHARE. With a clear focus on a shared research agenda, knowledge transfer, and citizen engagement, EDUC-SHARE is advancing research networking within EDUC and expanding thematic collaboration among the six EDUC partner universities on the one hand, and locally established research and participation frameworks on the other.
To accomplish these transformational goals, the alliance continues to develop new and exciting offers for its target groups:
A number of new mobility formats have been developed for alliance students: Summer and winter schools take place both digitally and on-site at universities. Short-term programs start with a digital preparation phase and add to this input with a one-week on-site visit linked to a specific project. Numerous digital courses from various disciplines as well as language courses complement these opportunities and create maximum flexibility. In a total of seven research seminars, the alliance has been supporting inter-European exchange between researchers from the partner universities. The seminars reflect the focus areas and expertise of the alliance universities and offer researchers a space for networking and perspective development. Teaching staff can receive further training and exchange ideas on current pedagogical approaches, as well as invent, try out, solidify, and sustain completely new formats in cooperative projects. Our administrative staff members are given the opportunity to meet and exchange best practices in one-week exchange programs. Furthermore, various language courses and e-tandems offer new opportunities to expand one’s knowledge.
We are therefore looking back on a successful project period so far and looking forward to an exciting future with the EDUC alliance.
