With three years of activity, the project funded by the European Commission has allowed the Una Europa alliance to take several steps forward on innovative teaching, by creating new dialogue opportunities and new models for the mobility of students, researchers, professors and university staff
The European university of the future is getting closer and closer: a campus as big as a continent where the academic community can study, do research, and share experiences while moving freely along the lines of a network made up of 11 prestigious universities. The Una Europa alliance presents the results of the three-year project 1Europe, financed with 5 million euros by the European Commission and including European degree programmes, innovative teaching tracks, new dialogue opportunities and new models for the mobility of students, researchers, professors and university staff.
As many as 9 pilot study programmes, offering international education opportunities focusing on key present and future topics, were born thanks to the 1Europe project. Starting with the Bachelor of Arts in European Studies, a joint European degree offering a multidisciplinar and multilingual curriculum with unique features. The University of Bologna is one of the four universities that will award this new degree. Students at the University of Bologna will also undertake mobility programmes at other partner universities during their studies.
The University of Bologna also promoted two post-graduate programmes: one on waste and water management for local communities and one on data cience for decision making with a focus on agri-food applications. Other pilot programmes held in collaboration with the University of Bologna were a PhD programme in cultural heritage and the creation of Joint Micro-credentials in Sustainability with a focus on the link between art and sustainability.
Alongside teaching, major innovations came about in the area of mobility programmes for students, researchers, professors, and university staff. The University of Bologna coordinated the development of new models for mobility to be applied on a large scale to involve the entire community of Una Europa, which counts over half a million students and one hundred thousand academics. With this goal in mind, an interactive tool was developed to visualise the mobility formats implemented so far. This tool is intended to give models for different subject areas and inspire other universities and alliances to implement similar mobility formats. Moreover, a database was published where students, professors and university staff can find out which international mobility agreements best suit their needs.
And there is much more. Joint PhD workshops, the student congress, podcasts, outreach events, student collaboration activities, events promoting entrepreneurship, events for doctoral students, training opportunities for university staff: thanks to 1Europe, a large number of initiatives were designed to create an even closer connection between the university communities of Una Europa.
In short, many steps have been taken towards the European university of the future, and many more are to come. Indeed, next year sees the launch of Una.Futura, the new project funding teaching and research activities of Una Europa over the four-year period 2023-2026, and also involving the three new universities that joined the alliance this year: the University of Zurich, University College Dublin and Leiden University.