Building bridges in European education and research: EUNICE network meets in Greece

Strong connections between universities vital for Europe

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In her speech, Rector Minna Martikainen, who is also the Vice-President for EUNICE, emphasised that Europe needs bold innovations to drive economic growth: 

– Progress must be built on joint research and education efforts. Strong connections between universities – such as the ones we have in EUNICE – can spark collaboration but also shared purpose and foster even comprehensive security and resilience of our societies.

Over three days of productive discussions, EUNICE partners worked together to continue deepening cooperation and establishing sustainable structures to support the alliance’s long-term development in research and education.

Research collaboration has taken steps forward

In their meetings, Vice-Rectors for Research highlighted the need to further strengthen research collaboration across EUNICE universities. Discussions pivoted around mapping common research areas, identifying strategic synergies and exploring opportunities for developing joint projects.

– Our research collaboration within EUNICE has taken steps forward in the form of joint project proposals, most recently with University of Mons in creating post-doc opportunities for researchers. Furthermore, research talks have taken place with Karlstad University, Brandenburg University of Technology and the University of Vaasa to share interesting research questions bottom-up to increase visibility amongst partners. Finally, the discussion on Cotutelle opportunities was discussed in our meeting, increasing mobility and creating collaborative networks, says Vice-Rector Mika Grundström.

A diverse educational offering with high-quality online learning possibilities

Vice-Rector Tanja Risikko highlights the academic offering within EUNICE: 

– EUNICE universities have opened agreed courses to the entire network. This gives students access to a wide and interesting offering. So far, over 8,000 students from all EUNICE universities have applied to these courses. 

The University of Vaasa’s latest contributions to the joint academic offering include MOOC-style courses: Content Marketing Strategy, Introduction to Strategic Business Development and Sustainable Energy Technologies. Students at partner universities can access the courses easily online and study at their own pace, allowing them to flexibly integrate the courses to their own academic schedule.

EUNICE also offers joint language courses, covering many languages spoken in the partner universities. According to Nina Pilke, Director of Language Centre Linginno, both students and teachers benefit from the collaboration:

– There are plans to expand the alliance’s popular language course offerings in both English and other languages. A series of Teachers’ Academy workshops will be launched for language teachers. Monthly workshops hosted by each partner will cover topics such as mediation, project-based learning, transculturality and AI.

Read more on EUNICE's website.