NUI Galway has welcomed government support for our participation in the ENLIGHT University Alliance, which will increase opportunities for students and staff to study, learn and work across Europe. The funding of almost €445,000 from the Higher Education Authority (HEA) to progress the new pan-European teaching, learning and research initiative over the next two and half years.

NUI Galway Vice President International, Professor Becky Whay said: “The ENLIGHT alliance exemplifies NUI Galway’s commitment to openness and diversity in our University, creating opportunities for students and staff, as well as for our renowned western region.

Our partnership in a European University Network puts us at the forefront of designing models for cross European collaboration, education, research and growth.”

This funding support from the HEA is critical to our ability to optimise the advantages that membership of this alliance opens up for us - for our students who wish to travel and learn throughout Europe and for our staff who wish to partner with fellow academics and professional services.”

NUI Galway President and current chair of the ENLIGHT Alliance, Professor Ciarán Ó hÓgartaigh said: “NUI Galway is delighted with this Government support to strengthen our participation in the ENLIGHT alliance.

“All nine of the universities in ENLIGHT are based outside of capital cities which gives us a particular perspective on the world and community.

Together, we are regional drivers of development, working closely to tackle societal challenges and see international ambition as a means of maximising regional impact.  At NUI Galway, we serve our region best - and respect it - by being open to the highest standards of excellence and co-operation. Securing Government support for ENLIGHT will afford us and our students and staff the opportunity to learn collectively, to excel and to address shared challenges consistent with our values as a university community.”

Innovators Under 35 is an annual list that recognises outstanding innovators who are younger than 35. The awards span a wide range of fields, including biotechnology, materials, computer hardware, energy, transportation, communications, and the Internet.

We are searching for individuals from around Europe whose superb technical work promises to shape the coming decades. Our goal is to recognise the development of new technology or the creative application of existing technologies to solve the world’s biggest problems. We reward ingenious and elegant work that matters to the world at large—not just to peers in a particular field or industry.

This year’s IU35 Europe festival of innovation will take place in Gaoth Dobhair, Ireland, on 19-21 May 2022 when we will celebrate young European visionaries pursuing the same objective: innovation, ingenuity, and advances toward addressing the world’s most pressing challenges.

You can submit a nomination here. Competition closes 31 March 2022.

Dean Lewis was elected as the new president of the University of Bordeaux, largest university in the region ‘Nouvelle Aquitaine’ (60,000 students), on January 24 for a 4-year term.

Professor of electronics, vice-president of the board of directors of the University of Bordeaux from 2014 to 2018 and vice-president in charge of human resources from 2018 to 2022, Dean Lewis succeeds Manuel Tunon de Lara.

He intends to build upon the momentum of his predecessor and has adopted the U30 strategy that the University of Bordeaux has set itself for 2030. However, this ten-year framework "offers degrees of freedom", he says, and will be subject to milestones that may lead to adjustments: to give academic time back to associate professors, to allow all to engage meaningfully with the university project and to accelerate the deployment of the roadmap for environmental and societal transitions at the same time "managing the constraint on employment as well as possible".

Dean Lewis considers that “the main challenges will be to develop ‘made-to-measure’ course offers that focus on student success, to further strengthen inter- or transdisciplinary approaches, responding to societal challenges and that the latter must be well-coordinated with our academic partners, local authorities and the socio-economic world.”

He is particularly keen to emphasize new directions related to environmental and societal transitions: "There are important steps to be taken… on the one hand by mobilizing the university community to respond to the climate emergency, on the other hand by proposing new mechanisms to promote parity, diversity and equality, and finally by defining a global policy dealing with issues of ethics, professional conduct and scientific integrity."

Another of his priorities is to promote the well-being of the university community, both staff and students, in their work and their studies by, but not only, limiting the negative impact of the underfunding of universities, especially regarding payroll.

“I hope to be a president who is accessible, at the service of all the communities that make up the University of Bordeaux, president of a committed university working within society. I hope to combine diligence and compassion in everything I do.”

On March 9^th at 6pm, the next ENLIGHT Lecture will be hosted and livestreamed online. The fifth session of this semesters’ ENLIGHT Lecture series explores connection the connection between Climate Change and Migration as a growing number of natural disasters, extreme heat and drought will turn climate change into the most common cause of forced migration within the 21^st century.

The students Ragna and Paul investigate current and inspiring projects and stories related to climate protection and sustainability at the University of Göttingen. In the video series "Ragna und Paul fragen nach(haltig)" (in German with English subtitles), the two sustainability reporters provide insight about the Climate Action Plan 2030 of the University, the reactions of the forest to climate change, the switch of the Göttingen canteen "Mensa am Turm" to a purely vegan-vegetarian menu and sustainable start-ups of the University.

As the next generations are very much shaped by their teachers, it is important to offer more undergraduate and graduate students the opportunity to start their studies as a teacher.

The United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN) and Siemens Gamesa want to promote university talent in the fight against climate change (SDG 13). As part of the international “Universities for SGD 13 Award” competition, students from selected universities are therefore working in an interdisciplinary manner to develop solutions for the energy transition and environmental sustainability. The University of Göttingen is one of the five selected Universities from which students can apply, together with the Tsinghua University in China, University of Pretoria in South Africa, Pontifical University of Rio de Janeiro in Brazil and the Arizona State University in the USA.

As of this week ENLIGHT is proud to launch the very first edition of our brand new ENLIGHT courses in AI, Climate Neutrality and Global Engagement.

From 14 February to 18 February, University of Tartu organized an interdisciplinary proposal-writing workshop entitled “Equity and Sustainability”. The workshop took place in the framework of the ENLIGHT project and brought together 33 doctoral students from nine universities via zoom.

ENLIVE is a virtual exchange project run by the Espace Langues, the centre for language learning and intercultural exchange at the University of Bordeaux. Guided by facilitators, participants engage in weekly synchronous discussions in English as a lingua franca context. Together, students build relationships, discuss current social issues and work towards a micro social media campaign. Students may choose from a range of areas to explore, such as gender and education, science denial and anti-science movements or disability in society.

Advanced Manufacturing Research Fellowship Programme in the Basque – New Aquitaine Region (ADAGIO) is a cross-border Programme aimed at enhancing the research and innovation (R&I) capacity and high-quality human resources of the regions of Euskadi (Spain) and New Aquitaine Region (France) in the selected field of Advanced Manufacturing.

The first call for the ADAGIO Cofund Fellowships Programme will open on February 1st 2021, with a view to incorporate postdoctoral talent in the area of Advanced Manufacturing, specifically in the following fields:

• Advanced Materials & Processes
• Intelligent, Flexible & Efficient Production Systems
• Digital & Connected Factory
• Energy Efficiency
• Sustainable Manufacturing.

ADAGIO will bring together 15 experienced researchers (8 in the first call and 7 in the second call) to develop a 36 month stay through 2 open calls at international level. The fellows will decide whether to carry out a 36 month advanced research project in one of the two hosting institutions or to combine it with a more applied research path oriented towards market needs, by doing up to 12 months secondments (with a minimum of 3 months) in one or more of the industrial partner organisations associated with the programme or in another partner organisation of their own choice.

The project is coordinated by the University of the Basque Country with the participation of the University of Bordeaux.

If interested, further information on the call and application details are available at https://www.ehu.eus/web/cofund-adagio 

Ghent University (Belgium), the Medical University of Gdańsk (Poland), the University of Groningen (The Netherlands) and the University of Lille (France) are proud to announce the new International Master in Sustainable Drug Discovery (S-DISCO), which was recently selected under Erasmus+. S-DISCO focuses on drug discovery, which is the creative and critically important phase in the life cycle of a medicine that precedes elaborated preclinical and clinical development.