Forests are considered one of the most important instruments in the fight against climate change. They have high potential to absorb carbon emissions and play a major role in biodiversity conservation. This session looks at the impact of climate change on forests and their adaptation to environmental changes.
As higher education institutions, the ENLIGHT partner act as regional, national, and global innovators preparing society for necessary transformation through appropriate governance, research, education and transfer activities, as well as sustainable operations and facilities.
One of the major goals of the European University ENLIGHT is the continuous reduction of CO2 emissions in all areas of the partner universities, which has been emphasised by the signing of the ENLIGHT Sustainability Engagement Agreement [.pdf] in 2021.
Since national and international mobilities at higher education institutions cause high amounts of carbon emissions, it is important to encourage employees and students to travel in a more sustainable way. Therefore, ENLIGHT is developing a Sustainable Travel Policy to foster sustainable travel between the ENLIGHT partner universities.
On the ENLIGHT sustainable travel and living platform, the partners provide instutional and network information with regard to sustainable mobility and living as well as CO2 calculation and offsetting opportunities.
The ENLIGHT partner universities of Uppsala, Groningen and Ghent are organizing a Virtual Exchange Partnering Fair together with the FAUBAI, the Brazilian Association for International Education (similar to NAFSA or EAIE but for Brazil).
The goal of the initiative is to promote collaboration between the ENLIGHT universities and Brazilian universities participating in the BRaVE programme (Brazilian Virtual Exchange), to develop Virtual Exchange as an innovative teaching and learning method, to facilitate new contacts with teachers in Europe and Brazil, and to provide information about Virtual Exchange training opportunities.
The target groups are teachers and researchers with an interest in collaboration with Brazil and Virtual Exchange, International Relations Office staff, and pedagogical developers.
On Monday, 25 October 2021, 9:00 BRT / 14:00 CEST, we host a one-hour ZOOM webinar in which experts for Virtual Exchange will give an introduction into the concept, good-practise examples and current developments in the field. We will also inform about training opportunities and possibilities to develop new Virtual Exchanges.
After the webinar, the participants are invited to participate in a match-making to find a partner for developing a new VE initiative. Based on a short online questionnaire, we will create some matches and introduce teachers with a shared interest. The matches will receive help from an experienced VE developer during a first meeting in the beginning of November on the Gather Town Platform.
Courses are starting and students are returning to their campuses (or their digital classrooms) which means that the work of the ENLIGHT Student Network continues. Some representatives have left their positions and moved on. Our official hand-over meeting took place in August. We are looking forward to our exciting Student Board elections and working with all the new Student Network Representatives.
The Student Network has successfully sent in an application to participate in the Teaching and Learning Conference in Ghent looking at the lessons we have learned through digital learning and the lessons we will learn as we return to in person teaching. We are excited to engage with the diverse student groups that make up ENLIGHT over the coming year and are hopeful we will meet each other in person over this academic year.
