EUTOPIA acknowledges the role of our universities in responding to the current pandemic.

An expert panel came together during the second EUTOPIA week (23 - 27 Nov 2020) to highlight some of the excellent research-led contributions made by colleagues towards combatting COVID-19.

Rewatch the expert panel here

Speakers:

• Tomas Grysell, Head of Unit for Pedagogical Development and Interactive Learning, Göteborgs Universitet
• Enric Vallduví, Vice Rector of Research, Pompeu Fabra University, Barcelona
• Patrick Courilleau, Vice President Education, CY Cergy Paris Université

• Dirk Devroey, Dean of the Faculty of Medicine and Pharmacy, Vrije Universiteit Brussel

EUTOPIA is not a straightforward project. on the contrary, it is a unique, complex, and intensive project that aims to transform universities profoundly.

It is unique, because it is the expression of the will of six sovereign universities to go through a process of collective self-transformation. It is a complex project because the process touches upon all aspects of the university. It is also an intense project as lots needs to be done in a short period. 

One of the distinctive aspects of EUTOPIA is that a new educational model is being developed where the focus is no longer on moving individuals from X to Z for a single short or long period, but on supporting the creation of long lasting and sustainable networks. Our educational model of the future will bring together academics, students and extra-academic stakeholders from all EUTOPIA partner universities. Together, they will co-create courses and learning material in so-called Connected Learning Communities.  In such EUTOPIA connected learning communities students, staff and extra academic partners will gain substantial added value and relevance by cooperating at a European scale. 

We realize that for reasons of sustainability we do have to change our travel policy. But we also have to acknowledge that EUTOPIA can never be only just a digital platform of collaboration. ‘Being there’ and ‘feeling connected’ remain an important element of the educational experience as well.  Short term and well-chosen mobility is needed as an instrument to allow participation of students in international experiments /assignments and to support staff in building the connectedness needed among colleagues that are willing to exchange pedagogical practices. In fact, connectedness is one of EUTOPIA’s educational model’s main pillars. The very first pilot cases are kicking off right now and we are looking forward to starting this exiting learning journey together.

- Caroline Pauwels, Rector Vrije Universiteit Brussel

Geared towards the challenges of the future
The alliance will be challenge-drive to prepare students and staff as European citizens and lifelong learners who care and act for the future of the planet and humanity.

Student-centered and student-led
The alliance will provide transformative and open learning opportunities, and extended horizons of expectation and ability, both across Europe and throughout the world.

Attentive to the plurality, potentiality and international pre-eminence of Europe’s regions
The alliance will build on its place-making strengths, connecting cultures and contexts in order to enhance European capability and creativity, and support the international pre-eminence of European innovation and influence.

Committed to the principles of openness and inclusion
The alliance will foster and support knowledge co-creation, by building open resources and collaborative platforms, endorsing open science agendas, and sponsoring the access, mobility and inclusivity mechanisms that liberate our intellectual and social potential.

• 5 July – 9 July 2021: Summer school on Heritage

EUTOPIA PhD Co-tutelle programme: results of the 2021 call for proposals

The members of the EUTOPIA Alliance have selected the 18 laureates of the 2021 PhD co-tutelle call. 

Exploring DNA structures, Modeling language learning in robots, Investigating the role of dance in post-colonial imaginaries, Treating lung cancer, Understanding social cohesion or the influence of education on health, Upcycling waste geomaterials: just a few examples of the subjects that will be researched by this years cohort of EUTOPIA PhD Students.

The EUTOPIA PhD co-tutelle programme, now in its third year, is a flagship initiative that funds excellent research projects with global impact and provides exciting joint doctoral training opportunities. Projects are submitted by pairs of researchers belonging to EUTOPIA’s different institutions and research centres. Successful applicants co-supervise PhD candidates under a bilateral co-tutelle agreement. In addition to receiving a scholarship, PhD candidates enrolled in the programme benefit from experiencing two world-class research environments and from having access to common training and scientific exchange activities. This programme illustrates the willingness of the members of the Alliance to integrate their research communities and their commitment to scientific excellence, international research collaboration and academic mobility.

The 2021 edition of the EUTOPIA PhD co-tutelle programme, coordinated by CY Cergy Paris Université, was launched in January 2021 and allows the funding of PhD scholarships between four universities of the EUTOPIA Alliance: Vrije Universiteit Brussel, CY Cergy Paris Université, University of Ljubljana and University of Warwick. The programme is jointly funded by the four participating universities.

70 projects were submitted to the 2021 Call for Projects across a range of academic disciplines. The evaluation process involved an internal evaluation within each institution and a joint selection panel gathering the partners of each co-tutelle project.

EUTOPIA is an alliance of six universities that have recently been awarded an Erasmus+ 'European Universities' pilot project. The core mission of the EUTOPIA Alliance is to promote a connected and inclusive academic community, addressing global and local challenges, advancing excellence and inclusion, geared towards impact and fostering European economic development and innovation through a deep engagement of the Alliance with its local and regional ecosystems.

More information and results

Curious about working abroad?
In this second part of the "Life as an expat" workshop series, 5 panelists will be sharing the good and the bad about the expat life. Ask these VUB alumni all your questions on international work experiences.

Join our panel on
Tuesday, 4 May, 2021  
6 p.m. CET

Register here

PhD Scholarship ERC Starting Grant 'CURIAE VIRIDES' in the area of sustainable development law

The Institute for European Studies is looking for a PhD-student with a doctoral grant. 

About the Institute for European Studies (IES):

The IES aims to excel at cutting-edge, multidisciplinary and applied policy research on the most urgent governance challenges confronting policymakers in Europe and the wider world. Most notably, these include (i) the governance of sustainability transitions in Europe and  internationally (ii) the impact of migration on the economic potential, political cohesion and diverse identities of European societies, (iii) the implications of the return of great power competition for European security, diplomacy and defence policies, and (iv) the way in which digital technologies challenge the organisation of the public and private sectors as well as our understanding of democracy writ large. 

In this call, the IES is seeking an innovative and original PhD project within the first of the noted research themes, i.e. the sustainability transitions, more specific conducting research on “judicial (and social) activism on ecological governance gaps”. 

More information here

EUTOPIA-SIF                     

SCIENCE & INNOVATION POST-DOCTORAL FELLOWSHIPS PROGRAMME

Second call for applications 2021-22: opening on 20 September 2021

Call deadline 10 January 2022, 13:00 CET

Applications online only: www.eutopia.smapply.io 

A Short Guide for applicants is available on the call website:  https://bit.ly/SecCall

*** 

The EUTOPIA alliance is launching a second call for applications offering 21 Post-doctoral fellowships as part of the EUTOPIA Science and Innovation Fellowships Programme (EUTOPIA-SIF). This programme aims at enhancing the research potential and the career perspectives of promising researchers in their early-career stage. Applicants are expected to demonstrate their capacity to bring original solutions to the social challenges faced in the five key research areas outlined by the programme. As academic experts, they shall help to understand and figure solutions to the difficulties faced by a planet with limited resources and complex societal issues. Interdisciplinary interactions are appreciated, and applicants from the Arts and Humanities encouraged. The selected research areas are:

• MATERIALS ENGINEERING including advanced analytical science, photonics, new material science, quantum technology
• DATA & INTELLIGENCE including artificial intelligence, complexity, mathematical modelling, information-systems engineering
• HEALTH including immunology and antibacterial resistance, cancer, ageing, reproductive health, neurosciences
• SUSTAINABILITY including energy, circular economy, mobility, urban planning, material heritage, water management
• WELFARE & INCLUSION including business management and finance, governance, ethics, inequality, law and demography

Applications are open to PhD holders or equivalent, of any nationality. They will be assessed on the scientific quality, experience and prior results of the candidate, on the feasibility and the potential impact of the proposal, and the candidate’s career development perspective as an EUTOPIA-SIF fellow, through a rigorous two stage selection process including external review of all eligible proposals by renowned experts and interviews with short-listed candidates. 

The EUTOPIA-SIF offers competitive contracts in every hosting university, for a duration of 24 months, with attractive salaries covering their costs of living and income taxes, and an additional budget for research and travel expenses. Mobility is an essential feature of the EUTOPIA-SIF. Researchers are expected to move at least twice during their 24 months contract: once at a EUTOPIA university and once at an external academic or non-academic partner institution among a network of more than 45 companies, local authorities and non-profit organizations. Extensive training and career mentoring by senior academic supervisors are included.

The submission platform of this second call for proposals will be opened on September 20th, 2021: www.eutopia.smapply.io

An optional pre-application stage will be available from September 20th to October 25^th 2021, 13:00 CET.  to help candidates find a match in EUTOPIA research groups.

The deadline for submission of proposals is January 10^th, 2022, 13:00 CET.

Researchers will find detailed information about the EUTOPIA-SIF on the website of the alliance, www.eutopia-university.eu.

The EUTOPIA Science and Innovation Fellowship Program (EUTOPIA-SIF) has received co-funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation Maria Skłodowska-Curie Actions, under grant agreement number 945380, for a total number of 76 Post-doctoral fellowship, over 4 years, and a budget of 10,2M€, of which 5,6M€ is financed by the European Union and 4,6M€ by the EUTOPIA universities.    

Objectives

The Researcher Mobility Program will support research visits of EUTOPIA researchers across EUTOPIA partner universities. The main objective of this program is to foster research collaborations and to allow the sharing of expertise and infrastructures and the development of joint research activities (e.g. common publications, PhD co-tutelles, joint applications for external research funds etc.), in line with EUTOPIA’s mission to promote a connected and inclusive academic community, addressing global and local challenges and advancing excellence and inclusion.

The program is developed as part of the EUTOPIA 2050 Erasmus+ project. It will allow each EUTOPIA university to finance a minimum of 4 research mobility projects, for a total of 24 research visits over the duration of the EUTOPIA 2050 project.

All visits financed under the EUTOPIA Researcher Mobility Program should be project-led and allow the development and furthering of research collaborations between the researchers of the EUTOPIA Alliance. The program is open to all academic disciplines and topics. Projects addressing key societal challenges of our time, and related to EUTOPIA’s overarching theme “Planetary well-being” are especially encouraged.

Eligibility and funding

Who can apply?

• Faculty from all EUTOPIA partner universities, including post-doctoral fellows – 
• Pre-doctoral researchers are not eligible to this mobility program (but a dedicated doctoral mobility program is in preparation).
• Faculty from international partners of the six universities of EUTOPIA, within the frame of research projects involving researchers from multiple EUTOPIA member universities.

What can be funded ?

• The program supports short research visits of 2 to 3 weeks and covers travel, accommodation and living expenses during the stay, within the limit of 3000 euros per project.
• For EUTOPIA faculty, coverage and reimbursement will be defined in accordance with the financial rules of the home university of the researcher. For international faculty, the financial rules of the host university will apply.

Application procedure overview

A complete description of the application procedure will be provided online on 6 July 2020. 

The application will include:

• A description of the research project, to be carried out during the visit;
• The identification of a host researcher co-responsible for the conduct of the research project during the visit; who shall also be the main contact person for the visiting researcher in the host institution in the preparation of the project and during the visit; 
• the endorsement of the director of the host research center, confirming the research center’s capacity of offering good research conditions for the visit.

Research collaboration opportunities

For an overview of the research activities of the EUTOPIA partners and to establish contact with researchers or research centers at partner institutions, please refer to the following links:

• University of Warwick
• Vrije Universiteit Brussel
• CY Cergy Paris University and theparisseineinitiative.org
• University of Ljubljana
• Pompeu Fabra University
• University of Gothenburg

Contact for general inquiries:

Nicola Ebenburger, Director of International Scientific Development, CY Cergy Paris University, nicola.ebenburger@cyu.fr

Local referents of the EUTOPIA Research Mobility program will be nominated by each partner university early July.

Join us to hear and learn from emerging undergraduate researchers at the ninth annual International Conference of Undergraduate Research (ICUR), which will be held on 28^th-29th September 2021. Sponsored by the Monash-Warwick Alliance, it will showcase interdisciplinary research from nearly 600 undergraduate students from around the world.

VUB PROGRAMME

• 10h15 CET:

  • THE LOGIC OF ISRAEL'S FOREIGN POLICY IN LEBANON - Ileana-Ancuta Grigorescu

  • Japanese and German Indo-Pacific Strategies: A Comparison of Two Civilian Powers’ Foreign Policy - Christoph Lhotka

• 11h30 CET:

  •  Potentiation of mitotane by Fluvastatin in adrenocortical carcinoma - Alexander Dumarey

  • Radiosensitizing ATM - deficient lung cancer cells by using ATR inhibitors - Febe Verhulst

• 13h15 CET:

  • Bridging the GAP: an algorithm to construct Lie algebra identities from group laws - Robynn Corveleyn

• 14h30 CET:

  • A new approach to immunotherapy as a treatment for glioblastoma - Febe Jacobs

  • Using genomic based drug repurposing to find potential new anti-epileptic drugs - Lauren van den Broecke

• 15h45 CET:

  • Syrian refugees in Belgium and the polymedia era - Hussein Assaf

  • THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF THE ‘BURNOUT’ PHENOMENA  - Thomas Pooja

• 17h30 CET:

  • Understanding how journalism contributes to the decline of democracy  - Freja Ellefsen

  • Puro Amor (2018) and Hair/Pelitos (1994): A comparative study of Sandra Cisneros’ works that combine English with Spanish and visual art. - Janne Vandebroeck

• 18h45 CET

  • P300 Inter-trial variability in patients with multiple sclerosis - Sara Dierickx

  • Beta cell replacement therapy for T1D  - Silke Van Lint

ICUR 2021 is connecting with more institutions than ever before, virtually linking student presenters from the University of Warwick, UK; Monash University campuses in Melbourne and Malaysia; Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (NTU), University of Leeds, UK; the Warwick EUTOPIA Partnership including Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium, Pompeu Fabra University , Barcelona (UPF), University of Gothenburg, Sweden, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia, and CY Cergy Paris University; Baruch College, City University of New York, University of Nebraska, Lincoln (UNL), and Pennsylvania State University and the University of British Columbia in North America; and Stellenbosch University in South Africa. 

ICUR provides the opportunity for undergraduate researchers across all disciplines to present their work to a global audience, via video-conferencing technology and a virtual conferencing centre, hosted by our ICUR App. Attendees can drop in to sessions throughout the 28^th-29^th September, from the comfort of their own homes and offices.

ICUR 2021 is free to join and open to the public from anywhere in the world. Thanks to its 48-hour format, participants and audience will be able to watch, participate, interact and ask questions via the ICUR App, no matter which time zone they live in.

Please download and register with the ICUR App now to take part in ICUR 2021, support emerging researchers and discover what’s going on in the world of undergraduate research.

ICUR 2021 will also feature virtual poster presentations, an inspiring panel of keynote speakers including Dr Michael Tildesley and Dr Steve Fuller from the University of Warwick and Priya Sharma fro Monash University and an alumni panel of past ICUR presenters and student leaders from Monash and Warwick. Our ICUR alumni will discuss how they translated their experiences gained from ICUR, into real-world opportunities.

You can also connect with ICUR online via our social media channels @icurstudent on Instagram, Twitter, Facebookand LinkedIn, and share about your experience using the hashtag #ICUR2021.

We look forward to welcoming you at ICUR 2021!

Visit the EUTOPIA Student Career Ambassadors LinkedIn page, Instagram page or the EUTOPIA website for more info on all upcoming workshops!

RETHINKING THE UN SDG AGENDA IN THE POST-PANDEMIC ERA: BUILDING NEW PRIORITIES, FACING NEW CHALLENGES AND SEIZING OPPORTUNITIES

Register here before June 14th

From the international organizations to our own little communities and families, everything has been shaken by the current COVID-19 pandemic. Global problems associated with poverty, hunger, and surely health, have been foregrounded. The crisis has led to a lot of new issues and accelerated many others. When it is just a decade to reach the deadline of the SDGs and the 2030 Agenda, the path seems to have dramatically changed. This challenge also provides an opportunity to act for a fairer and greener society while tackling the consequences of this tremendous disruption. The conference will be student-led, strengthening the student centred value emphasized in the alliance, giving a main role to them, their rich ideas and voices speaking from all over Europe. “Rethinking the UN SDG Agenda in the Post Pandemic Era” will look at the particular effect of the health crisis on the SDGs, especially in cities, inequalities, consumption and other topics in a transdisciplinary way. Encouraging the participation of experts in the fields and university students in order to create a joint conversation necessary to widen our perspectives and therefore work towards these goals while leaving no one behind.

Program:

June 30

10:00 Presentation Antoni Luna, vice rector of internationalization at UPF.

10:15 Keynote by Henning Göransson, Program Officer of Water and Sanitation at the Stockholm International Water Institute. #SDG6

11:00 Planet: inspirational pitch presentations

12:00 People: inspirational pitch presentations.

July 1

11:00 Planet: round table

12:00 Poster presentation

13:00 Peace: round table

14:00 Keynote by Cynthia Enloe, Feminist Theorist, Writer and Professor, with focus on gender and militarism. #SDG4 #SDG16

July 2

10:00 Partnerships: inspirational pitch presentations.

11:00 Prosperity: inspirational pitch presentations.

12:00 People: Workshop by Helena Robert

13:00 Greeting Antoni Luna

• Wednesday 16 June
• 14:00 - 16:45 CET - Workshop 3: Towards an internationalized curriculum. 

For organizational purposes, we kindly request interested persons to register here. 

It is not necessary to attend all 3 workshops, just the ones of your interest. Please note that registration will be open until Friday 11 June at 16 h CET

Upon registration, participants will receive a briefing with the session goals and objectives, as well as a few questions and prompts that will be used to facilitate the participation and the exchange of ideas during the workshop.  

EUTOPIA Science Fair

Think Europe is out of reach during the pandemic and these #blijfinuwkottimes? Think again!  EUTOPIA unites 6 universities, among which VUB of course, across Europe in a prestigious and innovative cooperative project aimed at transforming European Higher Education once and for all. And you can be part of this European network!

HOW?

By visiting EUTOPIA's online Science Fair, for example! The EUTOPIA Science Fairs are one of the ways the EUTOPIA alliance chose to display the variety and the quality of its PhD and post-doctoral research. Due to the pandemic, the first EUTOPIA Science Fair will be organised as a virtual event—a Research Posters exhibition on EUTOPIA’s website — starting 15 February 2021.

WHAT?

A virtual exhibition of research posters and short videos pitching some of the core issues EUTOPIA's researchers are currently tackling. During the kick-off session on February 15th at 11h30, visitors to the exhibition will have the possibility to talk to the researchers via specific Zoom links. Some round table talks will also be organized at the end of February, so stay tuned!

WHEN?

The Science Fair will open on 15 February 2021, and will remain open until 31 March 2021. One or two round-table discussions will be organised on a transversal thematic at the end of February 2021.

WHY?

Why take a look? Because EUTOPIA is a European international alliance, and the research posters on display may open new perspectives for researchers of the consortium, including senior academic staff. The Science Fair round table discussions can also be the occasion to get to know an intercultural and integrated community of likeminded universities and researchers across Europe.

INTEREST PIQUED?

Of course it is! More information here

1st BeEUTOPIAn Student Conference: 20th to 22nd of April 2021 

THE FIRST BEEUTOPIAN STUDENT CONFERENCE – THE IMPACTS OF COVID-19 ON INTERNATIONAL EDUCATION

The first BeEUTOPIAn Student Conference will be focusing on the impact of Covid-19 pandemic on different aspects of international education. We will host professors, academic experts and students from many European universities, to talk about experience and problems that we have faced during this one year of the pandemic. 

A lot has changed in the educational systems – we have faced the move of classes and other activities online, social distancing has left campuses across European Union empty and all of that has had a big impact on education. 

During the three days of the conference we will organize 5 lectures dedicated to many aspects of impacts of the pandemic. 

CONFERENCE PROGRAM

April 20th - DAY 1 [4 PM - 7:45 PM]

Lecture 1 [4 PM - 5:15 PM]: Digitalization & COVID-19

- 15-minute break-

Lecture 2 [5:30 PM - 7:45 PM]: The impacts of COVID-19 on mental health

April 21st - DAY 2 [4 PM - 7:45 PM]

Lecture 1 [4 PM - 5:15 PM]: The effects of COVID-19 on student formation and work perspective

- 15-minute break -

Lecture 2 [5:30 PM - 7:45 PM]: COVID-19 consequences on specific cases (the future of Erasmus program)

April 22nd - DAY 3 [4 PM - 5:30 PM]

Lecture: Future & Solutions

REGISTRATION

Participants can fill out online registration form via this link. 

! THE FIRT 20 PEOPLE TO REGISTER WILL RECEIVE BEEUTOPIAN GOODIE BAG !

LECTURES DESCRIPTION

Day 1 | 20 April 2021: Digitalisation, COVID-19 and mental health

The first day provides an opportunity to assess how digitalisation created a new experiential concept about learning and mental health. Discussion will focus on how students and lecturers adapt to a digital form of learning and teaching and a new paradigm became part of everyone’s primary and secondary identity. This session will also discuss on how assessments have been transformed in higher.  In the second part of the program, we will focus on the mental health characteristic of online learning and digitalisation. Here, we look at different supports and provisions that, or the lack of it, might have been available during the height of the pandemic.  This part of the session will focus on the implicit and explicit feature of mental health.

Day 2 | 21 April 2021: The consequences of COVID-19

The cost of COVID-19 is axiomatic. Providing platform with the aim of discussing the consequences of COVID-19, in this second day, we will talk about how the pandemic created a vacuum on equality, accessibility, and possible missed market opportunities. The purpose is to gain understanding into the complex result of the pandemic and the need for a collaborative and multilateral engagement. In the afternoon, specific details regarding the cost of COVID-19 will be examined and how to solve chronic problem that has been looming since lockdown. This includes support provision for international students, zeal of COVID-19 graduates to join labor force, robustness of academic output in an e-learning environment, and the availability of face-to-face internship to bridge the gap between academic theories and its practical trait.

Day 3 | 22 April 2021: Future and possible solutions

The last day of this three-day Student Conference will put in the spotlight on how to connect and engage various stakeholders to find solutions to these challenges. To be used as a stepping stone, this last session will offer pathways to discuss lessons that can be learnt and success that can be built; evaluate pedagogical tools and the expansion of blended learning; and the closure of any educational gaps and mental health issues as a result of the pandemic.

Virtual city tour of Brussels – 29/03/2021 12h00 – 13h00 CET

Artist, architect and city guide Olaf Winkler will guide you through the city of Brussels and its unique areas. During the tour, Olaf will take you to three main areas of the capital of Europe:

EUTOPIA-Science and Innovation Fellowships (EUTOPIA-SIF) offers 76 post-doctoral researchers a 2-year fellowship position. International post-doctoral researchers with a strong research proposal can apply for a fellowship at VUB, and VUB post-docs interested in international mobility can apply for positions at EUTOPIA's partners.

Selected researchers will first conduct research at their home institutions, followed up by two research secondments at international partners: one at one of the EUTOPIA partner universities, and one at a third party partner institution (academic or extra-academic stakeholder). Researchers will also enjoy unique training opportunities, career advice and academic guidance throughout their 2-year fellowship.

The first call for applications is now open, and closes January 11 2020. Research proposals in one of the four following transdisciplinary fields are eligible for funding: materials engineering, data & intelligence, health, sustainability, welfare & inclusion.

EUTOPIA-SIF is a case study in the recently published European Research Area (ERA) report ‘Towards a 2030 vision on the future of universities in Europe’ (p121), and was lauded extensively! 

"An example of the positive societal impact of universities being deeply integrated into innovation ecosystems are the EUTOPIA Science & Innovation post-doctoral Fellowships (EUTOPIA-SIF), which aims to fully exploit the integration between universities and local, regional, national, European and sometimes also global innovation ecosystems.” 

Ergo, EUTOPIA-SIF offers a prime opportunity to help build the university of the future! 

Interest picqued? Make sure to join the EUTOPIA-SIF info webinars November 9 and December 14 , or contact our project manager Cristina.Macovei@vub.be for more information.

WEDISCOVER DAYS BARCELONA: EUTOPIA AND THE CHALLENGE OF EUROPEAN CITIES

One of the main missions of EUTOPIA is to prepare future generations to face the constant changes and challenges that our society is experiencing. Higher education is undergoing radical transformations to adapt to the university of the future. EUTOPIA intends to prepare students, staff, teachers and researchers to become empowered European citizens for today’s disruptive world.

The Pompeu Fabra University organises the wediscover days barcelona on 28, 29 & 30 October 2020, as the first step of the Open Innovation Challenge initiative, which forms the axis of the Place Making policy of EUTOPIA.

This virtual event will be achieved thanks to the joint work, efforts and close collaboration with experts, institutions, cultural centres and local entities and industries. The objective is to discuss the current social problems that the main European cities are going through today.

The wediscover days barcelona  will help students to start a discovery and research process to acquire knowledge beyond the university campuses. With the motto “from local to global”, the idea is that students find inspiration in common problems and concerns of our societies, seeking practical solutions to issues that could also be implemented on a global scale.

With a programme that includes conferences, talks, seminars, screenings, debates, visits and workshops , the wediscover days barcelona  intend to familiarize students with an array of contemporary issues related to the main Sustainable Development Goals: Climate Emergency, Transport and Mobility, Healthy Food and Sustainable Food Production and Consumption, Social Inclusion and Fighting Inequality, Making Cities and Human Settlements Inclusive, Safe, Resilient and Sustainable.

The event will merge students from the six universities that have previously focused on the effect of the world emergencies at a local level. They will meet with some of UPF’s public and private partners, academics and journalists, bringing a plurality of voices to the idea that European cities are confronting similar difficulties.

The wediscover days barcelona are open, not only to EUTOPIA students who will be able to participate further in the challenge, but also to college students from all around Europe. High schoolers of Catalonia are also invited to engage and discover what the university of the future will look like. 

Given the evolution of the pandemic, the event will be entirely digital this time. The wediscover days barcelona will be broadcasted live through the following link: https://www.upf.edu/web/eutopia/wediscover-live.

Challenges are one of the attractive peculiarities of the EUTOPIA methodology of co-construction of answers to global problems that Europe is about to face in the near future, for students, helped by academic staff and public-private partners, are impelled to work collectively.  With its four stages, in four different cities, the Open Innovation Challenge is a good example of it. After Barcelona, the students should meet again in Brussels next spring, hosted by the Vrije Universiteit Brussel, where the team's projects will be outlined. The University of Gothenburg should then organize a European hackathon by the end of 2021, selecting the teams that will go to the finals hosted by the University of Warwick at the commencement of 2022.

For further information, visit the Pompeu Fabra University website (www.upf.edu) and the EUTOPIA website (www.eutopia-university.eu). Download in high-resolution the banners and A2 posters of the WeDiscover Days.

* * *

ICUR2020 – the 8th International Conference of Undergraduate Research – took place on 29-30 September 2020. ICUR is where students present their undergraduate research. This year, presentations were set up in video-linked sessions with all participating universities involved from 11 countries across 4 continents with spoken and poster sessions across 48 hours, all digitally! 

EUTOPIA students presented their research projects in video-linked sessions to ICUR partner universities around the world. A range of topics were presented and discussed, from “Housing in Saint Petersburg: providing access to safe, adequate and affordable housing for all” to “The lytic life cycle of the bacteriophage GIL01 infecting Bacillus thuringiensis is activated by the gp6 protein”. In total, ICUR ran 109 sessions across the two days with over 2500 unique views.

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Together with its EUTOPIA partners, VUB is participating for the second year and we are proud to have six of our students present. They are all in action on 29 September, and we encourage the whole VUB community to join in and support them. All presentations can be followed via the ICUR App – check out the icurportal.com for more info and to see the programme of the two-day event. Our VUB students are Alisa Spriet (geography), Loyle Campbell and Paulina Rios Maya (political sciences), Yael Kahn (medicine), Sophie Coenen (biomedical engineering), and Arthur Meul (communications). 

"The ICUR allowed me to present my bachelor research to an audience of global peers from multiple leading universities. Not only was this a unique chance to present my work, but it also connected me to a cohort of like-minded students all around the world." - Loyle Wesley Campbell, Political Sciences, VUB

Through the app, anyone can attend ICUR 2020 virtually, watch sessions, participate, interact and ask questions without leaving your home. No matter what time zone anyone is in, participants can access any panel that is taking place while you are logged on the app. It’s a great opportunity to meet fellow students from across the world, to network, to ask questions, to interact with the presenters and audience and be part of a truly interdisciplinary international academic conference. 

It’s almost impossible to get more international than this event. Presenters from the EUTOPIA partners - Warwick University (UK), Vrije Universiteit Brussel (Belgium), Pompeu Fabra University (Spain), University of Ljubljana (Slovenia), and CY Cergy Paris University (France) - join forces with those from Monash University (in Australia and Malaysia), Nanyan Technological University (Singapore), University of Leeds (UK), Baruch College, City University of New York (US), University of British Colombia (Canada), University of Nebraska (US), and Stellenbosch University (South Africa).

"I am very grateful for the opportunity that I have had to present my research at The International Conference of Undergraduate Research 2020. Through this enriching experience you meet students from around the world, all with different fields of study and disciplines. Prior to the conference my co-panelists and I organized a roundtable. We got to know each other better, supported one another, discussed our presentations and scripts. During the ICUR journey, I had the chance to improve my presentation and academic writing skills. My best advice: enjoy the moment!” - Yaël Kahn, medical student at the VUB

Keynote by Helen Keen

This year the keynote will be given by Helen Keen, on Wednesday 30 September (9am, Belgian time). She is an award-winning performer and popular-science writer. In her BBC Radio 4 show about the history and development of human spaceflight, “It is Rocket Science”, she combines science with comedy. The critically-acclaimed show on the 2013 WISE Media Award and was nominated for the 2015 Writers’ Guild of Great Britain. During her career, she has hosted first live comedy night at CERN in Switzerland and was featured in a National Geographic series, StarTalk with Neil deGrasse Tyson where she talked about making connections between pop culture and science. Her innovative approach to factual matters was recognised by WIRED magazine who appointed her as an Innovation Fellow. 

Monash University Opening Speakers 

This year Monash University will be hosting two distinguished guests to officially open the conference, hosted by the Monash ICUR Student Directors Ryan Buhagiar & Brooke Maat: Simone Pianko a current Monash Engineering Honours student and founder of the Borrow Cup Sustainability Initiative at Monash University & Dr. Brian Martin the Associate Dean, (Indigenous) and Senior Lecturer at Monash Art, Design & Architecture.

Undergraduate Research Alumni Panel 

You can also attend the alumni panel session, hear from past presenters about the value of undergraduate research, for their own careers and personal development.  

More information on ICUR 2020: https://www.icurportal.com/

The University of Ljubljana successfully hosted the first Western Balkans workshop on September 3-4, 2020. Throughout the three-year lifetime of EUTOPIA2050 project, there are six workshops planned. The primary goal of the online workshop was not merely regional inclusion, but the establishment of strong and long-lasting partnerships between European Universities and Western Balkans universities, as well as transfer of knowledge on relevant topics about research and development. The Western Balkans attendees that participated in the two-day workshop come from Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Macedonia, Republic of Kosovo and Montenegro. Topics covered during the workshop primarily related to EU research programmes and initiatives, as well as ways to increase research activities at universities of Western Balkans.  The said topics were presented by experts from the European Commission and ERC, PhD students and representatives from Western Balkans and EUTOPIA, with whom the Western Balkans participants had the opportunity to discuss different matters on the topics. The participants were interested in issues such as brain circulation, research funding and support, and ERC programme, producing highly interesting and useful dialogues among the participants and presenters. Videos of the workshop will be made available of EUTOPIA University YouTube channel soon. The next online Western Balkans workshop in the series is planned for the end of November 2020. Everyone is invited to join and enrich the workshop with their participation.

It was an intensive week which we hope: brought cohesion, strengthened a common Eutopian culture and disseminated EUTOPIA to a wider audience through: 

• 31 events organized during the week for a total of more than 400 participants  
• 31 videos disseminated through the EUTOPIA social networks made of cultural visits, Discover CY videos and Student’s associations’ videos 
• More than 1400 views for the different events on EUTOPIA’s YouTube channel 
• 2 contests launched, results here: Photo Contest & Pitch My EUTOPIA 
• 2 conferences and 3 Noon Talks broadcasted live on YouTube 
• 2 workshops uniting staff from all 6 universities around 2 topics: “Good practices on welcoming students in post-crisis situation” and “European calls: towards a EUTOPIA strategy” 
• A Student Forum, including students from all 6 universities, bringing a debate on sustainability and launching the European Universities Student Think Tank (EUSTT) 
• 14 Work meetings and 4 Board meetings  

Do visit our YouTube channel and our Facebook page to check the content posted during the Eweek. 

Thank you to all the students, staff members and academics from the EUTOPIA community who made this first Eweek possible, and a special thanks to the members of the EUTOPIA community who actively participated in the conferences, Noon Talks and who sent us videos for the Discover CY and the Student’s associations’ Videos. 

If you participated at the Eweek, your opinion on the organization and events of the Eweek is valuable to us.  A couple of minutes of your time to answer to the survey would be greatly appreciated.