EUTOPIA

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

Ensure sustainability of EUTOPIA and dissemination of its learnings.

This Work Package undertakes actions towards dissemination of the results of our project and actions towards ensuring the sustainability of the EUTOPIA European University. For the former, a common dissemination strategy will be developed supported by common communication tools. For the latter, emphasis will be on setting up a long-term governance structure and a new, long-term strategic plan structure and business plan.

We are quite excited to share this new project with all staff members and students of the alliance. 

For the Eutopian Student Council, it was necessary to implement a series of platforms in which students could express and share their brilliant work. That is why we created the EUSTT, a place whose aim is to connect the knowledge, ideas and projects of students from the alliance. 

The EUTOPIA Student Think Tank (EUSTT) is a think tank that will be for students run by students. 

That means that we will seek to bring an ad hoc arrangement of students who will take on different crucial positions within the think tank. Therefore, the EUTOPIAn Student Think Tank will not only allow students to share their work but also it will provide skill-training which involves the student community in policy-making processes, those that promote values and human rights. As students of the alliance, we want a sound Eutopia student community that supports the Eutopian University spirit and gives opportunities to future leaders.

Stay tuned!

12 PhD co-tutelle projects have been selected, with 4 partners of the EUTOPIA alliance, out of 21 projects submitted jointly by researchers and laboratories from CY Initiative (CY Cergy Paris University and ESSEC) and partner universities (Warwick, VUB, Ljubljana, Pompeu Fabra). The selected projects will be co-financed by CY Initiative for a total of 1.02M euros.  
 
Details of the results can be found through this link.
 
This call for projects has generated a great interest from CY Initiative’s scientific community. Thank you to all the project leaders for their interest and the energy mobilized.

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.

EUTOPIA is pleased to announce the forthcoming opening of 20 post-doctoral fellowships, as part of the EUTOPIA Science and Innovation Fellowships Program (EUTOPIA-SIF). The EUTOPIA Science and Innovation Fellowship Program (EUTOPIA-SIF) has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under grant agreement number 945380 and is co-funded by the member universities of EUTOPIA.

The EUTOPIA-SIF program aims at enhancing the research potential and career perspective of outstanding young researchers from around the world. It will provide the opportunity for early-career researchers to develop their independent research and undertake training. Fellows will be hosted by one of the partner universities of EUTOPIA and will be offered extensive mobility opportunities within EUTOPIA and beyond.
Please find more information on the Key Research Areas and on the benefits of the programme here.

Call opening and application procedure

All necessary information regarding application procedure, selection criteria, and research topics will be available by 15th October 2020 on EUTOPIA’s website.
The foreseen deadline for applications is January 2021 and contracts are expected to start on September 2021. Details will be provided online.

• Supported by the University of Warwick, the Fernandes Fellowships aim to develop lasting research collaborations between Warwick and Europe, in particularly with EUTOPIA partners.
  The Fellowships will allow those in research, tenure-track or early academic positions at European institutions to undertake a three-month visit to Warwick (possibly split over two or three visits) in order to develop long-term research collaborations by participating in a specific program of research and scholarship with their host and other collaborators, and engaging with the wider Warwick research community.

  The Institute for Advanced Study (IAS) at Warwick has recently released details of projects that have been awarded Fernandes Fellowships. Researchers from the University of Pompeu Fabra, Vrije Universiteit Brussels, CY Cergy Paris Université and the University of Ljubljana have all notably been successful and will visit Warwick as Fellows for research projects.
  You can find more information through the link below.

  The scheme remains open for new applications but please contact the IAS ahead of applying to discuss the timings of planned visits in light of COVID-19. See below for further information.

  More information.

  Fernandes Fellowships

Together with its EUTOPIA partners, VUB is participating for the second year and we are proud to have seven 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 and Mathias Voets (communications). 

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).

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.