Since the turn of the year, the University of Skövde is, together with nine other universities, part of the European university INGENIUM. Recently, the official start was held in Oviedo, Spain. The University of Skövde was represented by Mikael Ejdebäck, Deputy Vice Chancellor for Internationalisation and a delegation of five people.
The delegation from the University of Skövde that was in Oviedo. From left: Taleb Nasab, Kassie Sundin, Jill Elmshorn, Christine Mulder, Sanna Larsson and Mikael Ejdebäck.
On the first day, a ceremonial opening was held with speeches by the president of the Asturias region, Adrián Barbón, the University of Oviedo Chancellor Ignacio Villaverde and representatives from the other nine universities. Then followed presentations of the activities of the universities and how they organised themselves for the collaboration within INGENIUM.
“It feels great, but also challenging. Now is the time to move from words to action. Over the next four years, we will together create a model for our international cooperation. For the University of Skövde, the alliance means that we get new opportunities to position both our education and our research in an international arena,” says Mikael Ejdebäck, who is also the Project Manager for INGENUM.
Focus on collaboration
INGENIUM is financed by the European Commission's European University Program and aims to develop cooperation between the universities, but also with the surrounding society.
Among other things, INGENIUM will develop joint educations at different levels. It will make it easier for both students and employees to study and work at one of the other universities. The alliance will also become an international benchmark for sustainable development, innovation, critical thinking and high-quality research.
"No coincidence that there were 10 of us"
At first the major task is to develop a "huge campus" that includes nearly 172,000 students and 12,380 employees. The universities that are part of the cross-border alliance are: Karlsruhe University of Applied Sciences (Germany), Medical University Sofia (Bulgaria), University of Oviedo (Spain), South-Eastern Finland University of Applied Sciences (Finland), University of Rouen-Normandy (France), University of Crete (Greece), Munster Technological University (Ireland), University G. d'Annunzio Chieti - Pescara (Italy), Gheorghe Asachi Technical University Of Iasi, (Romania) and the University of Skövde (Sweden).
“It is no coincidence that we, the universities mentioned above, are within the alliance. We have similar conditions in terms of geographical location and size, and as institutions for higher education we seem to have the same challenges. These common challenges will be processed in the project's ten different work packages,” says Mikael Ejdebäck.
On the second day, the project leader of the respective work packages gave presentations about how they intended to work within their groups during the first year. The University of Skövde is in charge of the work package on sustainable development and Christine Mulder, Innovation Advisor was responsible for the presentation. During the meeting, spontaneous discussions were also held between the work packages.
In total, the European Commission finances INGENIUM with 14.5 million Euros over four years.
Do you want to know more about INGENIUM?
Visit the European University website Home - Ingenium (ingenium-eu.education)
