Completing the Knowledge Square
Freiburg, Jul 27, 2020
Photo: mobilise248/stock.adobe.com
Teaching, research, scientific innovation and interaction with society – these are the four core tasks of a ‘European University’ which the supranational consortium EPICUR aims to develop into. Since last year the University of Freiburg and seven partner institutions from around the European Union (EU) have received support to help them develop new forms of teaching and learning. Now, EPICUR is receiving a further two million euros for three years from the EU Horizon 2020 funding line ‘Science with and for Society’, so as to engage with the three areas that were previously omitted, and complete the ‘Knowledge square’.
Knowledge transfer is a central point at EPICUR, because universities also need impetus from society to further develop research and teaching.
Photo: mobilise248/stock.adobe.com
The current pandemic situation and the related political discussion has clearly shown that a shared European education and research area is essential for the future. Universities bring together a new generation of Europeans. “We want to educate young people to tackle the great challenges facing Europe, across boundaries, across disciplines, cultures and languages,” says Prof. Dr. Hans-Jochen Schiewer, Rector of the University of Freiburg, “European teaching is the basis for strengthening a European identity.”
Life-long learning needs research
To achieve this, the University of Freiburg is cooperating in EPICUR with three familiar partners from Eucor – The European Campus: the French universities of Strasbourg and Haute Alsace and the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology. In addition, the partners have brought on board new allies from four countries. Completing the consortium are the University of Amsterdam, Netherlands, the Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznan, Poland, the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Vienna, Austria, and the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece. Central to the vision of European teaching, as conceived of by EPICUR, are a liberal arts and sciences education, digital transformation of teaching formats and the expansion of mobility options for students.
The Greek philosopher Epicurus is sometimes seen as the father of life-long learning, as he taught his pupils to act on clever ideas, rather than simply hold forth for hours. But as well as teaching, learning at a university also involves research. “It’s also important to us that the fields of innovation and interaction with society are regarded as being as necessary and valuable as research and teaching. And the interfaces between these tasks also present great potential if we think of things like ‘Service Learning’, that is, learning through societal engagement, or of applied research,” explains Dr. Verena Kremling, who as head of strategy at the University of Freiburg co-authored the application for the ‘Science with and for Society’ funding line.
Supranational topical issues
From January 2021 scientists from various faculties at the eight universities will be invited to network and prepare EPIClusters. The aim is for them to develop projects in which researchers can work on ‘EPIChallenges’ in cooperation with stakeholders from fields outside academia. These projects will tackle political and social challenges such as sustainability, mobility, migration and health care, all of which need solutions. “We’re envisaging teams made up of early career researchers, where possible from all eight universities, but at least from three different countries. These teams will be offered the opportunity to develop approaches and applications for research together with experts from economics, politics, from government, federations and NGOs,” says Kremling.
Based on experiences gained on projects like these, EPICUR will then submit a full proposal for funding as a European University. The EU’s call for such proposals is expected in 2022. “With the preliminary conceptual work which already includes experimental research formats such as EPIClusters, we can gather worthwhile experience and thus improve our chance of full funding,” explains Kremling.
Bringing researchers together digitally
Next year Kremling and her team will be starting to approach scientists actively and advise them with the aim of attracting interest in working on an EPICluster. “Participants will be able to meet at EPICamps we will be organizing, where they can discuss how to shape the work they do together.” As far as possible and worthwhile, there may also be personal meetings, but virtual networking and cooperation will play a major part in EPICUR: the plan is to develop an independent digital social network – which can also be expanded later – for researchers at the eight partner universities. This EPICommunity will not only allow scientists to post individual pages on their work and research results to date, but also information on their social engagement, which can in some fields be equally relevant to future shared research projects.
Expertise from outside
Interaction with society aims to promote and enrich mutual involvement: “We aren’t primarily concerned about researchers presenting their results to the public,” explains Kremling. “We’d rather involve stakeholders from outside academia who are interested in new research outcomes and who have related expertise, for instance in terms of identifying subjects for research, and designing research projects. This may for example be NGOs, authorities, industry or social movements such as Fridays for Future. After all, we universities also need impetus from society, to decide the direction of our research and teaching.”
Annette Kollefrath-Persch