Over 1000 academics submitted 80 proposals in response to the ENLIGHT calls! Their innovative ideas from across our alliance show the commitment and creativity of our community.

We sincerely appreciate the effort and hard work behind each submission. More than 40 evaluators reviewed and scored all proposals. In the final selection both quality rank and balanced participation of the partner universities played a role. After careful consideration, we are excited to announce the 10 winning ENLIGHT Thematic Networks and 7 education projects selected for the Incubator Grants!

On November 6-7, 2024, Comenius University Bratislava hosted "Cities in Motion," an  ENLIGHT Regional Academy event, aimed at fostering innovative urban solutions through collaboration between academic and urban stakeholders. This dynamic event brought together experts, policymakers, academics, and students to explore sustainable urban mobility and address challenges facing cities today.

The event showcased approaches to urban challenges with notable contributions from the Metropolitan Institute of Bratislava. Dorota Šaríková, Katarína Brajerčík Kocková and Matej Ondovčík highlighted activities of the Metropolitan Institute of Bratislave and its collaboration with Comenius University, followed by Martina Benzoni Baláž and Daniel Klimovský discussing their innovative challenge-based course that won this years Teaching and Learning Award.

After a networking coffee break, the “Partners in Progress” segment launched with diverse case studies on sustainable urban mobility. Eoghan McDermott from Galway City Council spoke about active travel initiatives in Galway, while Hannah Hook from Ghent University shared insights on night cycling safety from East Flanders. This session continued after a joint lunch, with presentations from Teresa Uggla on Uppsala’s mobility planning, Lívia Orlovská on cyclist safety in public spaces, and a presentation by the workshop leader Marcel Horňák on a public space design manual developed by the Metropolitan Institute together with students contribution.

The afternoon wrapped up with a group workshop identifying collaboration gaps and generating new project ideas, followed by a communal dinner to deepen connections and informal discussions.

On November 7, attendees had the option to join a city tour of Bratislava led by Marcel Horňák.

“Cities in Motion” emphasized the importance of city-university cooperation in creating sustainable, innovative urban solutions, demonstrating how academic insights can effectively translate into real-world applications that benefit communities.

This Spring School is organised by the University of Groningen, Ghent University, the Huizinga Institute and the Dutch Research School for Medieval Studies to stimulate contacts and exchange between PhD candidates and ReMa students in the field of the history of emotions, a flourishing research field that connects different disciplines within the humanities, as well as between SSH and the (neuro)sciences. At least six of these disciplines will be represented in this course: cultural history, neurosciences, literary studies, art history, creative writing and musicology. The aim of the course is not to provide an introduction in the field but to deepen the participants’ knowledge of four topical angles through which emotions in history can be studied. The course will mainly focus on the Middle Ages and the Early Modern Period, but students working on Antiquity or the Modern Period can attend as well.

The mobility taskforce met in San Sebastián with a view to unleash mobility opportunities for students across the alliance

Student mobility is at the core of the ENLIGHT alliance goals: it enables students to have an international learning experience and results from –and also in- increased academic and research cooperation.

The mobility officers´ group discussed ways to work internally and bilaterally so as to increase mobility schemes and numbers among the 300k+ student community of the alliance. A combination of tools including short, semester and virtual exchange activities should be reinforced -so they agreed- aiming for an increased number of learners to benefit from these opportunities.

Also, academic involvement and cooperation is key to set up new disciplinary and interdisciplinary cooperation between ENLIGHT partners; to this end, Incubator weeks where lecturers meet and work to internationalize their curricula is providing particularly useful results and should continue being held.

In the belief that a deep understanding of each other´s internal procedures, structures and resources is key to finding an efficient way forward, participants also looked into the institutional, regulatory and contextual complexities that obstruct seamless mobility.

The ENLIGHT mobility taskforce is now even more committed to making ENLIGHT a shared space where student and academic exchange is deeply established and commonplace.