UNITE! University Network for Innovation, Technology and Engineering

 

UNITE! is a network of universities extended from Finland to Portugal, connecting European regions of economic prospect, entrepreneurship and innovation. Together the seven partners have 167,000 students and annually 36,700 graduates. They are already cooperating closely on more than 80 EU projects and have exchanged over 2,000 students in the past five years.

UNITE! originates from CLUSTER network and builds on three decades of close and dedicated cooperation on different aspects of higher education, research, innovation and social responsibility.

The UNITE! partners share a common view towards regional embeddedness, technology transfer, and engineering and science education, with complementary multidisciplinary approaches.
 

 
Statement by President Macron on European Universities:

 I believe we should create European Universities – a network of universities across Europe with programs that have all their students study abroad and take classes in at least two languages. These European Universities will also be drivers of educational innovation and the quest for excellence. We should set for ourselves the goal of creating at least 20 of them by 2024. However, we must begin setting up the first of these universities as early as the next academic year, with real European semesters and real European diplomas."

Extract from the speech of September 26th 2017
 

• European council's final conclusion of December 14th 2017
• More about European Universities

 

 

(click to enlarge)
 

• Northern Europe: Two major cities or regions, strong in entrepreneurship and innovation:
  KTH Stockholm (Sweden), and Aalto in Espoo-Helsinki (Finland)
   
• Western Europe: Two partners from the two largest economies and drivers of the European Union,
  TU Darmstadt in Germany (Hesse, Rhein-Main Region) and Grenoble INP (France / Rhone Alpes)
   
• Southern Europe: Three major economic and industrial centres ranging from Portugal to Northern Italy: University of Lisbon in Portugal, UPC Barcelona (Spain/Catalonia) and Politecnico di Torino (Italy / Piedmont)

 

The UNITE! alliance is formed by seven partners across Europe and the coordinator of UNITE! is TU Darmstadt.
Officially UNITE! is represented by the UNITE! President. TU President Tanja Brühl was elected as UNITE! President for a period of three years by the UNITE! Governing Platform at the Kick-off event for UNITE! in November 2019.

The UNITE! Secretariat based at TU Darmstadt coordinates and leads UNITE! and is headed by Secretary General Andreas Winkler. The Secretariat is responsible for managing the UNITE! alliance and the pilot project in which concepts for the short and long-term development of UNITE! are being developed in UNITE!-wide working groups.

The UNITE! activities within each of the partner universities are managed by the UNITE! Key Liaison Officers. Brigitte Plateau is the Key Liaison Officer at Grenoble INP - UGA. We are leading one work package (WP) named WP7 : UNITE! MOBILITY4ALL – STAFF and we lead subtasks within two other workpackages : WP3: SUPPORT SERVICES and WP6 : UNITE ! MOBILITY4ALL – STUDENTS.

Altogether, more than 50 Grenoble INP - UGA staff and student members are actively involved in UNITE!’s 10 different work packages.

WP3 : SUPPORT SERVICES

The ambition of UNITE! is, in particular, to develop common European values. To do so, it is important to be able to exchange and communicate widely.
A good approach to each other's language and culture is at the heart of the project.
The Multilingual and Multicultural Centre (M&M) supported by Grenoble INP-UGA is completely in line with this perspective. Our mission is threefold: the first one relates to the learning of the languages of the 7 partners and English, the second one to a cultural approach of each one and the third one to the development of linguistic tandems.

We have already identified the language learning materials - both online and face-to-face - and we are now structuring a common offer which will be proposed on the UNITE! website.
In addition, short videos and other attractive materials such as serious games are being developed to help students acquire the keys to successful mobility. Encouraged by the successful experiences of pairs, we have drawn up a proposal for tandems which will also strengthen the links between students.

After an initial phase of analysis and consultation, we are now embarking on the structuring phase in a working atmosphere that is always positive and creative.

WP6 : UNITE! MOBILITY4ALL - STUDENTS

The objectives pursued in the framework of WP6 are developed along 3 axes.
First, to ensure opportunities for mobility at Licence, Master and Doctorate levels. The second idea is to encourage fluid mobility across the different campuses of the network and finally, to promote the mutual recognition of diplomas and the idea of a European diploma.

The enhanced physical mobility schemes will have to be accompanied by numerous possibilities for virtual mobility and other internationalisation@home initiatives to lead to 50% of UNITE! students being mobile.

WP7 : UNITE! MOBILITY4ALL – STAFF

To support the objective of UNITE! to create a network of European universities, to contribute to the elaboration of a European university model and to develop an "entrepreneurial spirit" common to the staff of 7 universities, it is essential to strongly involve the staff who make the university live everyday, whether it is the staff providing support or accompaniment of missions, or teaching staff and teacher-researchers on collaborations between teachers.

The stakes of WP7 are therefore initially to encourage the networking of staff who are not accustomed to work in a European network in order to exchange best practices and organizations (TF 7-1), and to support the development of communities of teachers involved in common degrees or training paths (TF7 -2).

 

 

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