Since it is participated by garagErasmus Foundation and our member university Politecnico di Milano, we are really pleased to announce that the “ENHANCE – European Universities of Technology Alliance” will receive funding from the European Commission to strategically develop its cooperation, as announced by the European Commission on 9 July 2020.
The Alliance, of which TU Berlin (Germany) is the speaker, is one of 24 universities in the second call of the European University Initiative to be awarded 5 million euros over the coming three years.
ENHANCE alliance’s mission is to drive responsible societal transformation by enhancing a strong alliance of European Universities of Technology, empowering people to develop and use science and technology for the benefit of society and turn global challenges into opportunities. Its partner universities aim to use the three-year funding period to lay the foundation for structures which enable the seamless mobility of students, researchers, and employees of the universities.
Overall, the seven partners -the above-mentioned Politecnico di Milano and TU Berlin, Chalmers University of Technology (Sweden), Norwegian University of Science and Technology (Norway), RWTH Aachen University (Germany), Universitat Politècnica de València (Spain) and Warsaw University of Technology (Poland)- have approximately 245,000 students and have exchanged more than 4,400 students and staff over the last five years.
What is the European Universities Initiative?
The education landscape across Europe is changing. At the 2017 Gothenburg Summit, EU leaders outlined a vision for education and culture. In its December 2017 Conclusions, the European Council called on Member States, the Council and the Commission to take forward a number of initiatives, including:
‘…strengthening strategic partnerships across the EU between higher education institutions and encouraging the emergence by 2024 of some twenty ‘European Universities’, consisting in bottom-up networks of universities across the EU which will enable students to obtain a degree by combining studies in several EU countries and contribute to the international competitiveness of European universities’.
Co-developed by higher education institutions, student organisations, Member States and the Commission, the European Universities Initiative responds to this call. Today, it is one of the flagship initiatives of the EU’s ambitions to build a European Education Area.
The second round of the European Universities initiative attracted applications from 62 university alliances involving 380 higher education institutions. ENHANCE is one of 24 university networks comprising on average seven higher education institutions that are participating in the second call for creating a European Education Area by 2025.
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