Campus of European Universities: an opportunity to build bridges between European University Alliances
The meeting organised at the Palais des Congrès in Versailles that brought together representatives from the 41 alliances of European Universities, including CHARM-EU, aimed to promote transnational cooperation in the fields of higher education, research, and innovation.
With more than 300 participants, the Campus of European Universities organised at the Palais des Congrès in Versailles was a unique opportunity for alliances to showcase their achievements for a broad audience, including students, business, civil society and policy makers. Plenaries sessions, and round tables were organised to discuss how European Universities can actively contribute to the implementation of the European strategy. During the opening ceremony, the French Minister of Higher Education and Research, Sylvie Retailleau highlighted that the “successful of the European University alliances is undeniable” and Mariya Gabriel, European Commission’s Commissioner for Innovation, Research, Culture, Education and Youth emphasised that “the alliances are in the right path and that the European strategy for universities will enable further cooperation between European universities”.
“Village of Alliances”: showcasing the CHARM-EU Model
The event also included an exhibition space, around the “Village of Alliances”, in which European University alliances were represented. During the exhibition, CHARM-EU presented its main features and highlighted how it is working to strengthen the knowledge square: education, research, innovation, and business and society. During his presence at the booth, Prof. Joan Guàrdia Olmos, Rector of the University of Barcelona stressed out the importance of the synergies between the alliances to achieve common goals.
In addition, different workshops were organised in parallel to discuss trending topics such as the alliances’ common challenges, partnerships with external stakeholders, students perspectives and European university cooperation. Meritxell Chaves, CHARM-EU Alliance Manager participated in the workshop on “Role models for the transformation of the European higher education” in which she presented the CHARM-EU case and debated about the benefits of the alliance for the development of institutional strategies.
Background
As the first phase of funding for the alliances launched in 2019 comes to an end this year, this event was an opportunity to learn about and discuss the state-of play of the European Universities as well as the ambitious for the future. It was a unique opportunity to gather presidents of the 300 establishments involved in the 41 alliances of European Universities, in order to make an initial assessment of their achievements and the work undertaken to strengthen them.
The event was organised by the French Ministry for Higher Education and Research together with the Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs, France Universités, the Conference of Deans of French Schools of Engineering (CDEFI), the High Council for Evaluation of Research and Higher Education (HCERES), the Commission des Titres d'Ingénieur (CTI), Campus France and the Agence Erasmus+ France