This EU scheme should contribute to institutions of higher education committing to closer cooperation, which will lead to increased mobility and professional development, including in research. The meeting between the partners was held at Neapolis University Pafos in Cyprus.
Adding meaning to the collaboration
"The meeting was very fruitful and made us even better acquainted with each other's strengths. It featured discussions on how we can further collaborate. Concrete areas of cooperation have been put on the table and started to take clearer shape," says senior advisor Bente Gaalaas Rønningen Bolme of INN University.
45 visitors from all over Europe took part in the meeting, which was titled "Emerge Staff Week". In addition, a number of employees from the host institution, Neapolis University Pafos, participated as well.
Employees from the nine universities took part in parallel discussions to lay the foundations for collaboration in several areas: education and lifelong learning, research, and communication.
Coordination of educational programmes
The ambition of Emerge is the status of "European University", which will require close coordination of educational programmes so that students could more easily "jump" between study programmes at the participating institutions when building a university degree.
Emerge will also facilitate joint research projects in priority areas for the partners, and will make it easier for researchers at the institutions to find international partners. All the institutions in Emerge are regional institutions (located in the periphery of their countries) and thus share common challenges and opportunities. Although their academic profiles are not identical, there are many links that can provide opportunities for interdisciplinary research collaboration. Sustainability, digitalisation, cyber and innovation are areas in which several of the partners are engaged.
During the meeting in Paphos, concrete follow-up was agreed on regarding participation in certain research projects.
An ambitious alliance
"We are ambitious, but at the same time I feel that all the participating educational institutions are sincere in their desire to invest. We are in agreement regarding what we want and are also starting to find the framework for how to get there," says Bente Gaalaas Rønningen Bolme.
In addition to INN University, the Emerge alliance has members from Ireland, Germany, France, Spain, Slovakia, Greece and Cyprus. The participating institutions have over 125,000 students, combined. INN University has been a part of the alliance since 2019.
The EU annually invites university alliances to apply for the status of "European University". The Emerge alliance sent its application in January, and expects a response during the summer.
"You have to thread the needle quite carefully in order to be awarded the status, and we know that several alliances are waiting with improved applications after previous rejections. We won't give up if we get a no, but rather improve the application and send it again in the next application round, which opens in September," says Bolme.
During the meeting in Paphos, student representatives from the partner institutions participated as well. They laid the framework for the "Emerge Student Forum", which will be formally established later this week, with digital selection of representatives for various positions.
Read more about the Emerge university alliance (inn.no)
Contact
- bente.bolme@inn.no
This article was translated from Norwegian by Noorit Larsen