Senior representatives gather in Edinburgh to welcome the University of Helsinki to the UNA Europa alliance. Senior representatives gather in Edinburgh to welcome the University of Helsinki to the UNA Europa alliance The UNA Europa alliance, which will be awarded €5 million of EU funding in December, was formed following a drive for the creation of ‘European universities’. The vision is to redesign the education sector by establishing a university model that would enable student, staff and researcher mobility as well as the delivery of joint degree programmes. A series of events and meetings hosted by the University of Edinburgh, brought together 43 members of staff from all of the partner institutions and 45 members of staff from Edinburgh. The events cumulated with the alliance’s inaugural General Assembly meeting, held at Edinburgh City Chambers, where it was announced that the University of Helsinki would join UNA Europa as an eighth partner. The University of Helsinki is world-renowned for its research in university pedagogy and has significant hubs of creativity for blended and online learning, thereby bringing innovative insights and tools into UNA Europa. Emily PalmerSecretary-General of UNA Europa Helsinki joins current partners Freie Universität Berlin, Alma mater Studiorum Università di Bologna, the University of Edinburgh, Uniwersytet Jagielloński w Krakowie, KU Leuven, Universidad Complutense de Madrid and Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne. Image The 1EUROPE Project The alliance’s 1EUROPE project which will be awarded funding in December, aims to help with the facilitation of new ways of learning, increasing research collaboration and mobility of staff and students. The UNA Europa alliance has four key focus areas European studies, sustainability, cultural heritage and data science and AI, with the University of Edinburgh leading on the latter. The University of Helsinki also has a strong interest in this area and produces world leading scientific research. Helsinki is the oldest and largest academic institution in Finland and currently has a student community of over 31,000 students. Partnerships such as UNA Europa help to emphasise Edinburgh’s commitments to its European partners. The University of Edinburgh has been proudly international for 436 years. It will continue to be a beacon of excellence, with a determinedly international outlook, for generations to come. UNA Europa and the European Universities Initiative will help universities like Edinburgh go beyond traditional boundaries – both geographical and interdisciplinary – and better equip students and staff for the future. Professor Peter LievensVice-rector at KU Leuven and Coordinator of the 1EUROPE project Visit the UNA Europa website to find out more about the alliance and the 1EUROPE project Una Europa site Read our previous feature about UNA Europa Una Europa receive funding for 1Europe project This article was published on 2024-06-24
