Vanessa Debiais-Sainton, Director for Higher Education at the European Commission, attended the EUNICE-Jean Monnet workshop on the European universities’ alliances held in Spain, at the University of Cantabria
The University of Cantabria (UC) hosted in Santander (Spain) the workshop European Universities Alliances: Challenges and Opportunities for Students workshop, with the participation of the keynote speaker Vanessa Debiais-Sainton, Director for Higher Education at the European Commission, at the University of Cantabria (Spain). The European Universities initiative “can only succeed if you manage to implement real transformation from an institutional level and if you manage to embark your staff and students in this great adventure. For that, you´ll need the support of each and every service in this transformation, starting from the Rectors and the Vice-Rectors, Deans and also of all the academics, students and innovation surrounding ecosystem.”
In presence of students and EUNICE staff members, Debiais-Sainton addressed the Commission’s commitment to promoting the quality and competitiveness of the European university system through the creation and development of transnational alliances of European universities. EUNICE, the European University for Customised Education, is one of the 44 European university alliances existing at the moment, which comprises about 340 institutions from 31 European countries.
Debiais-Sainton’s conference was followed by a round table discussion on the opportunities that the EUNICE alliance offers to students. Speakers from three of EUNICE universities addressed different topics. Mouna Denden, representative of the EUNICE team at the Université Polytechnique Hauts-de-France (France), presented the online academic offer that EUNICE makes available to students; Kerstin Maier, from the EUNICE office of the University of Cantabria (Spain), discussed the joint opportunities in terms of cultural activities, languages and global competences, and Cristina Satriano, from the University of Catania (Italy), explained the opportunities offered by EUNICE with regards of the international internships and the connection between the academic environment and companies and entrepreneurship.
The workshop was organised by EUNICE European University and Jean Monnet Module on European Economic and Financial System & Regional Development of the University of Cantabria, supported by the Government of Cantabria.
Caption: Vanessa Debiais-Sainton, speaking remotely to the audience.
About EUNICE
EUNICE, the European University for Customised Education, is designed to solve social and economic challenges, both globally and locally. In 2020, EUNICE was selected during the second call for pilot projects of European Universities of the European Commission. The alliance is nurtured by ten universities’ intellectual and infrastructure input –Poznań University of Technology (Poland), Brandenburg University of Technology (Germany), University of Cantabria (Spain), University of Mons (Belgium), University of Catania (Italy), Université Polytechnique Hauts-de-France (France), University of Vaasa (Finland), Polytechnic Institute of Viseu (Portugal), University of Peloponnese (Greece) and University of Karlstad (Sweden)–.
This alliance, born from the European Universities initiative and funded by the European Commission, is building a solid network of interactions between educational institutions and other agents to work on social and economic challenges.
