The University of Potsdam and its five European partner institutions in Paris Nanterres and Rennes (France), Cagliari (Italy), Brno (Czech Republic) and Pécs (Hungary) today received an award in the “European Digital UniverCity” (EDUC) funding program. The consortium, led by the University of Potsdam, is one of 17 European networks now receiving support. The funding amount for all six partners is around € 5 million over three years. The European Commission's call for proposals, in which 54 consortia participated, was launched on the initiative of President Emmanuel Macron of France.
“EDUC” stands for an innovative form of university cooperation in the European Higher Education and Research Area, which brings together the diversity of its members in the sense of an ancient Greek “cité” into a new community. The aim of the project is to deepen the Bologna Process and to create a common space where students, teachers and administrators can work together without administrative, cultural and social obstacles.
The President of the University of Potsdam, Prof. Oliver Günther, Ph.D., sees in this program “a strong commitment to fundamental European values shaped by the Enlightenment and to the freedom of teaching and research as the basis of all modern higher education.” The University of Potsdam is very much looking forward to working closely with its European university partners. “In ten years' time, students should be able, within the framework of our European Alliance, to largely determine the duration, location and content of their studies themselves,” says Prof. Florian Schweigert, Vice President for International Affairs, Alumni and Fundraising at the University of Potsdam. This will mean a new quality of cooperation in teaching and research.
The consortium builds on many years of teaching and research cooperation between the individual partner universities. The partners share a strong international research profile with a distinctive regional commitment. They bring together around 160,000 students as well as 20,000 instructors and employees in administrative and technical services. New pedagogical approaches with a strong digital component will enable students to compile their curricula independently and significantly increase and simplify their international mobility. By 2025, “EDUC” will create a university community based on multilingualism, inclusion, interdisciplinarity and digital technologies that will prepare its students for the societal challenges of the future.
Contact: Silke Engel, University Press Officer and Director of the Department for Press and Public Relations
Telephone: +49 331 977-1496
Email: silke.engel@uni-potsdam.de
Press Release 26-06-2019 / No. 089
Silke Engel/Marita Böhning
University of Potsdam
Department for Press and Public Relations
Am Neuen Palais 10
14469 Potsdam
Tel.: +49 331 977-1474
Fax: +49 331 977-1130
Email: presseuuni-potsdampde
Internet: www.uni-potsdam.de/presse
Published online by: Katharina Zimmer
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