Ulysseus welcomes new partners

The new partners will feature as full partners for the next Ulysseus proposal to be submitted at the next European Universities call of Erasmus+ 2023.    

Next steps

Ulysseus is already working on the next application together with all partners and strongly believes in their vision of building a European university for the citizens of the future. With the new partners, the Ulysseus community will be even stronger and wider network of European higher education.

The comprehensive nature of both the University of Münster and the University of Montenegro as well as their capacity to fit and contribute to the Ulysseus Innovation ecosystem was very much appreciated. Enlargement has taken account of geographical diversity, the strengthening of research capacity and solidarity, not forgetting multilingualism and multiculturalism. In the future, our alliance will offer studies in nine different languages in eight different countries.  

European Strategy for Universities and European New Innovation Agenda: contribution of the European Universities

On 16 December, representatives of European institutions and members of Ulysseus met in Brussels to discuss the contribution of the European Universities initiative to the European Strategy for universities and the new European Innovation Agenda. To analyse these issues, Ulysseus organised two roundtables with specialists in the field. 

During the first roundtable, EU and Higher Education Institutions (HEI) representatives discussed the contribution of the European Universities to the New European Innovation Agenda. This roundtable – moderated by Fulvio Mastrogiovanni, Vice-rector for Internationalization of the University of Genoa – was attended by: 

• Ioana Dewandeler, Policy Officer, Higher Education, Directorate-General for Education, Youth, Sport and Culture. 
• Stephane Berghmans, EUA Director of Research and Innovation 
• Jeanick Briswalter, Rector of the University of Université Cote d’Azur. 
• Siegfried Walch, Professor & Head of department for Nonprofits Social & Health Management at MCI – The Entrepreneurial Shool. 

The New European Innovation Agenda will help to address the most pressing societal challenges through the development of new technologies and will position Europe at the forefront of tech innovation. In this regard, speakers gave a general approach about the innovation potential of the European Universities in this New European Innovation Agenda and discussed the role of Ulysseus European University in the implementation of this Agenda.  

The second roundtable addressed the role of universities as boosters of regional Innovation Ecosystems within and beyond the European Union.  This roundtable was facilitated by Koen Jonkers, representative of the Joint Research Center of the European Commission. 

Here, the panel of speakers discussed how HEI can accelerate and strengthen Innovation Ecosystems across the EU and contribute to reduce the innovation gap. The participants in this roundtable were:  

• Thomas Wobben, Director for Legislative Works at European Committee of the Regions. 
• Astrid Hannes, ERRIN Representative (European Regions Research and Innovation Network. 
• Ingrid Rigler, Deputy Head of Unit Innovation and EIT, Directorate-General for Education, Youth, Sport and Culture.  
• Minna Hiillos, Rector, Haaga-Helia University of Applied Sciences.  
• Peter Džupka, Head of the Department of Regional Science and Management, Faculty of Economics, Technical University of Košice (Slovakia). 
• Valentina Costa, Student of the University of Genoa (Italy).

Read more about the event and watch the recording of the two panels