Femke De Backere, associate professor at Ghent University and senior scientist at imec, blends software engineering with impactful healthcare research. Through ENLIGHT, she co-teaches the interdisciplinary summer school Innovation Game: Applying Serious Game Design in Health Care at Uppsala University. In this interview, she shares how ENLIGHT has helped her build international collaborations and push the boundaries of education and research in personalized, serious games. Read the full interview here.

Looking for an inspiring way to spend your summer? Join UniTartu Summer School 2025 from 28 July to 8 August in the vibrant and historic city of Tartu, Estonia! Applications are open until 30 April 2025.

Join University of Galway, University of Groningen/UMCG and Uppsala University on April 8^th  for a dynamic pan-European forum exploring Public and Patient Involvement (PPI) in research. This event brings together distinguished speakers from Sweden, the Netherlands, and Ireland who will share insights from case studies, highlighting both the commonalities and differences in PPI practices across diverse European contexts. There will be opportunities to hear perspectives from other ENLIGHT colleagues across Europe.

To stimulate and support the bottom-up cooperation between the ENLIGHT university communities, ENLIGHT launched a first set of calls for joint initiatives in April 2024. A second set of calls is launched in April 2025. 

Each call targets joint proposals for specific types of actions involving at least three ENLIGHT instutions.

180 participants from 18 different countries, 55 different organizations and a total of 50 universities/ universities of applied sciences. We look back on a very inspiring ENLIGHT IMPACT Conference, hosted by the University of Groningen. We engaged with inspiring keynote speakers Marthe Walvoort, Thomas Alslev Christensen and Igor Campillo. We have had thought-provoking discussions with Maria Hägglund, Daniela Lud, Frederik Verbeke, Natalie Walsh, Iona Dewandeler and Jorge Molina Martinez. Engaging campfire sessions by Julie Bayley, Maristela do Nascimento Rocha, Nele Bracke, Jacqueline Drost, Lorenzo Squintani and Balzhan Orazbayeva and inspring workshops from Emma Siddall, Ailsa Cook, Saskia Walcott, Giovanna Lima, Anabel Sánchez Plaza. Anja Smykowski, Esther de Smet and Zuzana Lisonová. Thank you all for your input on how to bring about meaningful impact and break down the walls between science and society.

The ENLIGHT Knowledge Exchange Session, State Aid Considerations in Research and Innovation at our Universities will take place online on Thursday 3^rd April 13.30 CET 

The session is aimed at staff of ENLIGHT universities who are working in the Research Offices, Technology Transfer and Innovation Offices, Compliance Offices, Research Legal, Research Finance also others who support externally funded research.

Pelin Koyuncu, psychology student at the University of Bern, attended the ENLIGHT summer school Game Design in Health Care and Education. She developed an app that motivates people to exercise and stay physically active. In this interview, she discusses how she combines her passion for gaming with her psychology studies at the University of Bern, and explains why an ENLIGHT hybrid course offers a unique experience. Read the full interview here

We are excited to announce that 18 new bottom-up initiatives by academic and non-academic staff from our ENLIGHT partner universities have been selected in the first application round of 2025!

A last-minute application led Adrián Binka, a General Medicine student at Comenius University, to an eye-opening journey with ENLIGHT. From tackling global neurohealth challenges to shaping the student voice in academia, ENLIGHT fueled his passion for research, sustainability, and collaboration across Europe. Now, he’s on a mission to share this life-changing experience with others.

Read the full interview to discover his story!

From February 27 to March 2, Göttingen became a hub of ideas, discussions, and action as students from across Europe gathered for the ENLIGHT Student Conference. This year’s focus? Sustainability and inclusivity — topics that shape our present and define our future. Both topics align with the ENLIGHT flagships of climate change and equity.

ENLIGHT Calls 2025: What’s New?  

ENLIGHT, a collaborative alliance of 10 universities, is dedicated to fostering cooperation between staff and students. Following the success of the first set of calls in 2024, which saw 80 applications and over 1,000 academics involved, ENLIGHT is excited to announce the second set of calls for 2025.

This spring semester ENLIGHT members can participate in six different staff training courses (Staff Weeks), four of which are still open for applications for both academic and non-academic staff.

The objective of the ENLIGHT Staff Weeks is to boost professional development and international cooperation, exchange best practices and encourage community-building between different fields. Each ENLIGHT university organises 2-5-day on-site courses every year, the topics range from marketing and funding to HR and career services.