UNITE! is one of the first 17 European University Alliances; it gathers seven universities that connect European regions of economic prospect, entrepreneurship and innovation with the aim to renew European higher education, within its Erasmus+ pilot project, as well as develop a common research and innovation agenda among its partners within its Horizon 2020 project.
UNITE! will connect engineering, science and technology with the great challenges of society in co-creation with students, faculty and staff – providing skills for a new generation of European and global citizens.
Key Activities
The process of developing a new university model started in autumn 2019; plus, starting from January 2021 the UNITE! Alliance will look even further and will take up the challenge launched by the EC to develop, in synergy with its education dimension, a shared, integrated, long-term research and innovation (R&I) strategy. It includes activities aimed at students and staff as well as external partners with the following targets:
- Physical and virtual mobility within UNITE! for all students that ranges from joint education, summer schools, and on-line courses, to new joint courses comprising a short-term mobility programme
- Language and cultural awareness courses
- A joint European PhD program to be developed within the UNITE! doctoral school
- Mobility within UNITE!
- Mobility within UNITE! for all staff, including thematic staff weeks
- Teaching and Learning Academy to help professors and educators develop models for flexible study paths and innovative pedagogies
- Connection of the ecosystems of UNITE! partners, aimed at offering regional actors the possibility for to form new powerful international partnerships
- Develop a common R&I 2030 agenda, emphasizing our common DNA and shared vocation to address major societal challenges;
- Develop policies to strengthen our R&I human capital by, e.g., new career development initiatives;
- Develop policies to share our research infrastructures (RIs) supported by, e.g., experimental tests of previously developed guidelines on a selection of Energy RIs;
- Reinforce cooperation with non-academic R&I players by, e.g., developing a network of Grant Offices & TTOs;
- Mainstream our comprehensive Open Science practices based on, e.g., a detailed experimental analysis on the approach of our R&I groups to OS;
- Involve citizens, civil society and public authorities in R&I;
- Develop relations with other Alliances for joint synergies/complementarities.
- Northern Europe: Two major cities or regions, strong in entrepreneurship and innovation: Aalto in Espoo-Helsinki (Finland) and KTH Stockholm (Sweden).
- Western Europe: Two partners from the two largest economies and drivers of the European Union, TU Darmstadt in Germany (Hessen, Rhein-Main Region), coordinator of the alliance, and Université Grenoble Alpes / Grenoble INP (France / Rhone Alpes)
- Southern Europe: Three major economic and industrial centres ranging from Portugal to Northern Italy: Politecnico di Torino (Italy / Piedmont), University of Lisbon / Instituto Superior Tecnico in Portugal and UPC Barcelona (Spain/Catalonia).
Source Politecnico di Torino
