Making a European, interconnected campus to enrich the education and research developed by EUNICE European University network. This was the central concept of the General Assembly meeting that brought together more than 80 representatives, including rectors, from the ten partner universities. The meeting took place on 23 and 24 April, 2024, and was hosted by the Brandenburg University of Technology Cottbus-Senftenberg (Germany), the first gathering of this kind celebrated in the context of the new Erasmus+ project: EUNICE4U (EUNICE’s new phase).

The agenda of the sessions included experience exchanges, think tanks and the developing initiatives on a European scale related to experiential learning, language courses, mobility, project management and international outreach beyond the EUNICE consortium, among other EUNICE4U project tasks.

Additionally, parallel sessions assessed ongoing REUNICE initiatives aiming to develop a framework that supports research collaborations within the consortium. As an example of the initiatives being piloted in REUNICE, soon its new Open Science Platform will be launched. REUNICE project is funded by the Horizon2020 Programme of the European Commission.

New opportunities

The European Campus, envisioned by the EUNICE consortium across ten countries, pursues a significant increase of the mobility rates of the partner universities within the alliance. Mobility should not only be limited to popular Erasmus exchanges of students during a semester. So, in addition to this physical mobility, other modalities are opening the path to more customised international experiences:

• Virtual mobility is a new concept related to the internationalisation-at-home initiatives, allowing individuals to study online or acquire competences while benefiting from intercultural learning experiences. In this context, EUNICE will open, in the following weeks, the registration for its shared online courses, available for free to students from the ten partner universities.
• New formats like the Blended Intensive Programmes, that combine online training with short on-site periods, being more accessible to students and easier to fit in their academic calendars.
• International internships that promote the learning-by-doing in companies abroad.
• Staff weeks for both, teaching and administrative staff, to foster the sharing and adoption of good practices. In EUNICE these events usually start with a short online course reinforcing aspects like languages, for example, followed by on-site workshops and job shadowing activities.