International collaboration is a major part of VUB’s identity. We conceived the newsletter as an extra tool to structure and strengthen the communication and dialogue with our partners worldwide. We are convinced that the competences, experience and knowledge within one single university are insufficient to understand the complexity of some research subjects and global problems, to model them and to design solutions. Therefore, we gradually develop the university network as the basic instrument to fulfill our functions and to which our individual university belongs. Only by doing so, we can prepare for new career paths, taking into account the extended life span, longer careers, faster job changes and the required flexibility, shorter economic cycles, the worldwide war for talent and the much needed global intercultural skills.
Why a newsletter? To build an ecosystem as mentioned above, it is essential that our partners learn to know us better. VUB incorporates the principle of Free Inquiry in its daily operation, education, research, community engagement, outreach policy and international relations. In the newsletter, we want to illustrate this attitude by highlighting our ideas, research results, best practices, international collaborations, activities and achievements… I am sure the content of the newsletter will be interesting, because at VUB, we provide capacity for abstraction of everyday problems and we nurture early adopters of new technologies, scientific theories and social models. Thereby, we wish to be the source of new creative talent with a clear intercultural focus that goes beyond the obvious and that is open to new ideas and perspectives. As comprehensive university in the cosmopolitan city of Brussels, we want to be perceived as an open independent university platform, embedded in international networks.
In such a networked platform, privileged and strategic partnerships are extremely important to realize more than just individual in- and outgoing student mobility and exchange, but also to build, next to occasional research synergies, sustainable cooperation structures such as international joint educational programmes, joint research laboratories, joint and dual degrees, embedded in a system of quality assurance that transcends the boundaries of the own university. This is the direct implementation of the Universitas thought, essential in the education towards independent world citizens that can act locally and think globally.
Those of you who know us already, will acknowledge that we have an attitude of making things happen, rather than only talking about them. Through the newsletter we want to keep you informed about our latest initiatives, activities and achievements and our plans for future collaborations in order to create new opportunities to work together with us and share some new adventures.
As I am no longer vice-rector for International Policy at VUB, I will act as pro-vice-rector from now on. Since October 1 I have become emeritus as well. My successor Prof Sonja Snacken has a humanities background, quite a change from science and technology, but with “unity in diversity” as one of the strong features of our university vision, this change is very welcome. I hope you will like the newsletter and become a faithful reader.