European Universities – Future of Higher Education Forum
At Palacký University Olomouc, 1st to 2nd December 2022, organized by Aurora Alliance & Network.
It will provide an opportunity to discuss and assess the role of European Universities Initiative pilot phase in the Czech higher education context and within the EU aims of building the Higher Education Area. This event will be an incubator for new ideas on the mobilisation of universities, in the broadest sense, to promote shared European values and a strengthened identity, and also to improve the quality, attractiveness and international competitiveness of Europe’s higher
education establishments.
The European Universities Initiative is embodied through 41 three-year pilot alliances involving nearly 300 establishments throughout Europe and more than one thousand affiliated partners (research centres, businesses, etc.). In Czech Republic, only four alliances from the pilot calls exist involving Charles University (4EU+), Masaryk University (Educ), Czech Technology University in Prague (EuroTeQ) and Palacký University Olomouc (Aurora). These alliances are piloting different models for innovative and world-class European universities of the future. The transformations underway are paving the way for future evolutions in the higher education sector in Europe: developing universities’ scientific potential, bolstering innovation ecosystems, cross-disciplinary understanding of major challenges such as climate change, digitalisation, inclusive and diverse education, and promoting fundamental values of internationally-minded growth.
To ensure their sustainability and a long-term vision, we need to align on providing more effective support for development of their joint working culture, identity and shared governance.
This Forum will enable us to support the Czech Presidency of the Council of the European Union in strengthening the Commission’s European Strategy for Universities by giving the European Universities the spotlight necessary for developing a supportive multilateral environment for their sustainability. It will enable us to assess and discuss the values for transformative institutional qualities through the lens of 4 existing Czech Alliances sharing the challenges as well as the best experiences. In the third call for EUN, all major Czech universities have applied, and the government has added EUN’s as an evaluation tool for HE, thus furthering the support for strategic European partnerships and paving the way towards HE modernisation in the Czech Republic.
This forum brings together the EU Member States, the Commission and of course all of the relevant stakeholders, in particular the alliances of European universities, and will be opened by the Minister for of Higher Education in CZ.
The two-day programmeme consists of:
- Two high-level panel sessions addressing the priorities of the European Universities’ ambitions
- Three “Alliance workshops” intended as spaces for exchanging best practices between Czech alliances and their top management focusing on research and education developments, offering initial feedback on their pilot phase in order to contribute to developing the next steps
- a closing (report) session of the panels and thematic sessions to contribute to Czech national and European level on the future of European universities in HE.
