Towards a European University
On February 28, the consortium submitted its proposal for the EU's European Universities call. The 13 member universities and associated partners jointly introduce a concept, which focuses primarily on solving challenges provided by industry and society.
"With this proposal ECIU shows that it is ready to truly innovate Europe’s higher education landscape, being entrepreneurial and challenging conventional thinking”, Victor van der Chijs, the University of Twente and President of ECIU, says.
The ECIU University
Universities have to reinvent their relationship with society and the challenges surrounding them. The ECIU University responds to the serious challenges the world is facing. Challenges we can only solve together.
Our universities have the research, knowledge and people. We know the industry and society stakeholders, including their needs. Therefore, the ECIU University will bring the needs of students and stakeholders together and change our way of delivering education from degree-based to challenge-based.
Challenge-based
In order to solve challenges, ECIU universities will assemble teams of regular students and people from industry and society, including lifelong learners. All learners have different backgrounds and thus, different needs for knowledge and skills. This is exactly what the ECIU University, its partners, and its stakeholders will cater to.
Co-creation
The plan for the ECIU University will be co-created with industry, public organisations, society, academics as well as future and current students at stakeholder events all over Europe.
“We are excited on the possibility to innovate the future of education in ECIU University. Co-creation has been an essential education tool in higher education in Tampere region and our recent activities on continuous learning and digital campus are forming a building block for an international university network”, states President Mari Walls
The input is brought together in our application for the European Universities call of the European Commission. All ECIU Member Universities are committed to the vision described in this application. The universities, industry partners and almost all regional public authorities also support the creation of the ECIU University. The supporting industry stakeholders are Airbus, Cisco, Engineering Ingegneria Informatica SpA, Ericsson AB, Hella, Intel, Lietuvos Energija, Lyse Group, NXP, Ponsse, Sandoz Industrial Products S.p.A. Gruppo Novartis, Sick AG, and Suez Environment.
The start-up phase
If funded, the ECIU University project will kick-off in November 2019. The first phase of the project will last for three years, during which the concept will be developed further. In the first year, the ECIU University will start with several small transnational challenges that last for only a few days or weeks, involving stakeholders, students, teachers and researchers.
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Members of the ECIU are Aalborg University, Denmark. Universidade de Aveiro, Portugal. Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Spain. Dublin City University, Ireland. Hamburg University of Technology, Germany. Linköping University, Sweden. Kaunas University of Technology, Lithuania. University of Nottingham, UK. University of Stavanger, Norway. University of Trento, Italy. Tampere University, Finland. University of Twente, the Netherlands. Tecnológico de Monterrey, Mexico.
