NEWS & EVENTS

The ENLIGHT consortium of 9 European universities was selected in the framework of the second call for "European Universities", the European Commission's pilot program for new multilateral networks. ENLIGHT is one of 24 networks that can focus on an ambitious strategy on educational innovation and receives a start-up funding of 5 M €.

ENLIGHT fully stands for "European university Network to promote equitable quality of Life, sustainability and Global engagement through Higher education Transformation."

The 9 ENLIGHT universities have set as a common goal to fundamentally transform higher education and to empower students (and anyone who wants to learn) with the right knowledge and skills to become engaged professionals and respond to the major, complex societal challenges of the 21st century.

On Wednesday 1st July 2020 from 3:00 to 4:00 pm (CET) we have organized the public ENLIGHT lecture 'Literature, Narrative, and Covid-19'. The full video is published on https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H36iWPFgqVs

Storytelling has formed an intrinsic part of the Covid-19 pandemic through journalism and other media, including social media exchanges. This session looked at forms of literary and narrative engagement with plague, disease and crisis from the 19th century to the present day. For this, Daniel Carey (National University of Ireland, Galway) was joined by Marysa Demoor, Ghent University (Belgium), Raili Marling (University of Tartu, Estonia) and Stephen Donovan (Uppsala University, Sweden) to discuss in Daniel Defoe’s Journal of the Plague Year and The Storm, as well as the coverage of epidemics in 19th-century periodicals, and the representation of epidemics as looming but invisible crises in fiction.

On Wednesday 1st July 2020 from 6:00 to 7:00 pm (CET) we have organized the public ENLIGHT lecture 'SARS-CoV-2: New virus, new detection protocols'. The full video is published on https://youtu.be/FkEuuQzt8o4

With Tomas Szemes and Amanda Sierra, two renowned scientists from our partner institutions Comenius University Bratislava (Slovakia) and University of the Basque Country (Spain), we have shed light on the development of fast, secure and cheap SARS-CoV-2 detection protocols that allow the public health system the continuous screening of new infections in order to fight the current health crisis.

NUI Galway will host an online seminar to address the issues faced by universities amid the COVID-19 pandemic. The seminar, ‘Universities and the COVID-19 Crisis: Problems, Prospects and Pathways’, will take place on Thursday, 11 June at 5.30 pm (CET) (https://mooreinstitute.ie/event/universities-and-the-covid-19-crisis-problems-prospects-and-pathways/).

Immense challenges face universities as a result of COVID-19. Teaching missions have been complicated by the move to online instruction, with uncertainties about whether campus opening will be possible, requirements around social distancing, and how to engage new and existing students. The financial position of institutions is under threat due to reliance on international students to fund the system and reduced income generally. At the same time, universities are a source of vital research on the pandemic as society as a whole looks for a solution and plans for the future.

Dear ENLIGHT community, dear ENLIGHT partners,

We hereby express our strong commitment to jointly addressing the major global challenges that the COVID-19 pandemic is generating.

The causes and consequences of the pandemic relate to the five global challenges that ENLIGHT has engaged to address. Our health and well-being is being affected or jeopardized in an unprecedented way. Artificial intelligence and digital solutions play a key role in the crisis response. The disruption of the global economy resulting from the pandemic may increase polarization in our societies. Finally, the pandemic is not without impact on environmental emergencies such as climate change or energy use and circularity, and lessons learned from the economic shutdown give opportunities for reflection.

A dedicated Coronavirus/Covid-19 news section collects relevant news, calls and international updates from the ENLIGHT partner universities in response to the coronavirus and the COVID-19 pandemic.

See https://enlight-eu.org/index.php/university-about-us/news-events/covid-19

On 27 May 2020 ENLIGHT organizes an online seminar for experts and coordinators in international education and mobility of the nine partner universities to exchange and discuss their strategies and practices of dealing with the global pandemic caused by the Coronavirus.