Monday, 08 April 2024: TU Dublin, a member of the European University of Technology (EUt+), hosted over 100 colleagues from the eight European members of the alliance, with events taking place across the University's campus in Grangegorman. Warmly welcomed to Dublin by John O'Connor, Strategic Lead EUt+ at TU Dublin, and Dr Deirdre McQuillan, Project Team Leader EUt+, the delegation continues to collaborate on an ambitious plan to create a unified European University with nine campuses across Europe.
This is the third year TU Dublin has hosted an EUt+ working week, but the first time it has welcomed new colleagues from Universita degli Studi di Cassino e del Lazio Meridionale (UNICAS) in Italy to Grangegorman. «Attendees will be very busy fine-tuning deliverables and project plans for a range of tasks, but there will be opportunities for our visitors to explore what our University and Dublin have to offer, with TU Dublin Conservatoire performances and visits to tourist favourites such as the Guinness Storehouse organised for our guests» affirmed John O’Connor.
EUt+ is one of 50 alliances participating in the European Universities Initiative, which aims to cooperate with higher institutions from all across Europe to benefit their students, staff, and society. After a three-year pilot phase, EUt+ set out its strategy for the next phase of the European Universities to realise its ambition to rethink the role of universities of technology in society, while building a new institution on a European scale with a global footprint.
The busy Dublin agenda included conferences, workshops, and informal working sessions where colleagues collaborated on a range of matters related to delivering high-quality education and conducting cutting-edge research. Plenary sessions included masterclasses about the European curricula framework for cluster development and drafting deliverables for KPI implementation. Speaking at the opening plenary session, Timothée Toury, Secretariat General of the Alliance, emphasised the impact of the new higher education package presented at the end of March by the Vice-President of the European Commission Margaritis Schinas and the Commissioner for Innovation, Research, Culture, Education and Youth Iliana Ivanova.
Taking into account that the overarching topic of the EUT+ Dublin Week was Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI), all guests were invited to look at these questions from a different standpoint on opening day during the presentation by Professor Tomas Brage from Lund University – «What Does Gender/Diversity have to do with Science/Technology?».
One of the highlights of the week was an event hosted by the EUt+ Ideas Institute think tank entitled «What European Values?» featuring renowned policy experts and academics who came together to offer their perspectives on the values that underpin the heart of the European project in the spirit of debate and open discussion. The EUt+ Ideas Institute was established to examine the features of sedimented conceptual ground and to allow discussion to take place in the context of a university, which has a fundamental remit and the role of posing questions without conditions. This must include an examination of the professed European values of human dignity, freedom, democracy, rule of law and human rights. The panel discussion was also attended by the ambassadors to Ireland of several EUT+ countries.
The next physical meeting of the EUT+ consortium will take place in May 2024 in Darmstadt.
