“Circle U. 2030” – New proposal submitted

Since the publication of the “rollout” call in October last year, our alliance has been working hard on the next phase, setting up our priorities for the upcoming four years and beyond. Building on the achievements and lessons learned from the Erasmus+ “Circle U.” pilot project, the Horizon 2020 “ERIA” project and the Erasmus+ strategic partnership “InnovEd4TS”, our main objective is to deepen and intensify our collaboration and make Circle U. a long-lasting reality for our communities.

A new Knowledge Hub and Open Campus

In this perspective, we will consolidate and further develop our joint ecosystem to drive our vision towards a truly European University. We will strengthen the three existing Knowledge Hubs by providing additional resources and fostering diverse bottom-up collaborations in our three priority themes – climate, democracy and global health. A new Knowledge Hub (and thus a new theme) will be established, following an alliance-wide consultation. This new hub will increase and diversify our education and research capacity.

We will set up the Circle U. Open Campus. This new overarching structure will act as an entry point for our communities (in particular students) so that they can be informed, have access and benefit from the opportunities offered in the alliance. The Open Campus will also serve as a central platform where our staff members will cooperate to ensure our activities are embedded in our universities.

Four support platforms

Based on the results of the Think and Do Tank and the Student-led Sustainable Innovation, we will also develop and test four support platforms. With the Teaching Innovation Lab (CU.til), the Multilingualism, Interculturality and Language Lab (CU.mil), the Community of Practice for early-career researchers (CU.ecr) and the inCU.bator, we aim to increase the impact of the activities developed by the Knowledge Hubs and beyond. These platforms will also lead the strategic reflection and research activities on related themes, such as sustainable education, teaching innovation, entrepreneurship, etc.

Student Fellows

The Academic Chairs remain at the heart of our alliance; they are our enablers, they are our champions, they are making Circle U. a reality. While increasing the number of chairs in the next phase, we will also expand the Chair programme with a new Fellow programme. With this programme, we want students, associated partners and global partners to contribute more directly to our alliance and co-create effectively new learning, teaching and research opportunities.

Scaling up

Beyond the development of our joint ecosystem, we will also scale up, strength and develop existing and new flagship educational and research activities. We will co-develop Master’s and PhD joint programmes, a set of joint modules on sustainability at Bachelor level, summer schools, challenge-based learning opportunities, micro-credentials and other open, short-term and blended activities.Through our platforms, we will provide more capacity-building training opportunities to our staff and our researchers, on entrepreneurship, Open Science, teaching innovation, multilingualism, interculturality. We will also increase the number of networking opportunities by establishing various new and innovative mobility schemes across the alliance.

By further developing our ecosystem and multiplying the concrete opportunities for our students, academics, researchers and staff, we will foster the seamless mobility and international exposure of an unprecedented number of students and staff across the alliance. And we will reach a larger and more diverse student and staff population, as well as key partners and stakeholders outside our alliance.

"Our alliance is more than another EU project"

Vincent Blondel, Circle U. President and Rector of the University of Louvain, says: “This proposal reflects our initial commitment. Our alliance is more than another EU project. Circle U. is transforming what we are and what we do as individual universities. I am delighted that more concrete activities will be developed and support in the next four years, making Circle U. a long-lasting reality for our communities.”

Bjørn Stensaker, Chair of the Circle U. Management Board and Vice-rector for education at the University of Oslo that will coordinate the new project, continues: “Circle U. 2030 is about building on the achievements of the pilot phase and making the impact of our cooperation even greater, more concrete, significant and meaningful for our students, our academics, our researchers and our staff. We have set up high but realistic ambitions for the next period that will bring our alliance to the next level.”

And, Kevin Guillaume, Circle U. Secretary General, underlines: “This proposal is concluding a participative and iterative consultation process that we have started in December 2021. Before writing the actual proposal, we took the necessary time to reflect, discuss and agree on the long-term horizon of Circle U. This shared vision is essential as we are building a strategic, long-lasting and sustainable cooperation.”

The results of the call are expected to be communicated by the end of June 2023.