Fields of Action

WP1 centers on management and coordination in order to ensure the successful implementation of the project and to lay the basis for the continuation and long-term sustainability of the Alliance.

These are to be achieved through:

• Establishment of ERUA’s reformed governance;
• Development and implementation of the long-term strategy of ERUA;
• Setting up of efficient project management structures and shared services, as well as sound financial management;
• Establishment of our advocacy strategy;
• Monitoring and ensuring the quality assurance implementation of ERUA activities;
• Defining the long-term sustainability and continuation strategy.

WP2 will coordinate activities relevant to developing and delivering innovative joint academic initiatives. Building on the achievements of the previous phase, WP2 will facilitate the set up of joint programmes and other courses with embedded mobility. It will also coordinate the delivery of intensive modules, summer and winter schools, and service learning activities, as well as the development of online teaching materials. WP2 will also expand the scope of the joint alliance infrastructure for the development of innovative pedagogies through the Academic Innovation Laboratory.

The aim of WP2 is to reinforce the alliance’s existing framework of teaching and learning opportunities and to facilitate the setting up new innovative initiatives through:

• Establishing a structured framework for joint programs and joint degrees;
• Further developing innovative teaching and learning opportunities;
• Creating seamless mobility opportunities.

Building on the previous experience of ERUA and re:ERUA, the aim of the WP3 is to establish a long-term model for collaborative interdisciplinary ERUA research. Through the working package we are seeking to promote research excellence and societal impact through the enhancing a joint ERUA’s research support system, establishing networks of researchers to encourage research collaboration beyond the confines of particular disciplines and universities and developing early career researchers internationalization competencies thus facilitating their integration in the networking and team science activities.

The tasks of the working package include:

• Design common and interdisciplinary research-clusters.
• Implementation of Clustering Activities.
• Creating dissemination pipelines for research clusters.
• Supporting joint research efforts and building capacity in research support administration.
• Establishment of a common framework for development of ERUA Early Career Researchers.
• Design of shared training schemes and tools for competences development, develop an Early Career Researchers support platform.

The aim of WP4 is to lead ERUA in the development of a consistent campus experience in a wide sense. This includes:

• a widely spread and persistent sense of community across ERUA members – including students, faculty and non-academic staff;
• seamless mobility as part of the everyday campus experience;
• common standards for greener and more sustainable virtual and physical campuses;
• a common visual identity and brand.

We promote a “slow mobility” approach focused on sustainability that aims at maximising the quality and added value of mobility instead of pushing numbers up.

This is achieved through:

• increase physical, blended, and virtual mobility opportunities;
• stimulate exchange, interaction, dialogue, mutual learning;
• consolidate networking and solidify partnerships;
• improve foreign language capacities at the member institutions;
• support low income and special needs students’ mobility;
• establish a green and inclusive campus strategy;
• build a common visual identity conveyed through its emblems);
• provide venues and activities for the engagement of alumni.

The main aim of the WP5 is to demonstrate ERUA’s societal core values on SDGs, and join efforts with local communities and regions  for achieving greater impact and efficiency. ERUA acts as an agent for promoting and propagating sustainability principles throughout society. We will continue developing and extending the three key initiatives (Digitalisation, Sustainability and Creativity) that we have set up during the previous phase of ERUA in order to connect and engage the Alliance with the outside world (stakeholders, partnerships, networks, communities, societies and regions):

• the Digital Reform for Digitalization,
• the Aeiforia for Sustainability (ancient Greek for sustainability)
• ERUAHaus for Creativity (inspired from the European Bauhaus initiative)

Working on these assets, we have identified roadblocks and missing pieces for a sustainable and intercultural dialogue which we will develop in ERUA. 

Building on this work, we now plan to:

• consolidate these assets by providing a convenient entry point and ensure consistent development via the Open (Innovation) Community based Collaborative Space and the Digital Creative Hub
• extend our knowledge base more specifically concerning sustainability and in particular concerning SDGs (inventory for sustainability research, innovation and technology) to use SDGs as a structuring tool for our contribution to regional sustainability;
• encourage and support bottom-up initiatives to build Creative and Interregional Knowledge Communities.

The general objective of the WP6 is to foster within the ERUA universities an entrepreneurship spirit in social sciences, with the potential collaboration of STEM disciplines, in order to address societal challenges related to the relevant thematic areas defined in the project.

By developing WP6, ERUA aims at:

•  Increasing student employability through the creation and consolidation of university-based start-up and spin off companies;
• Connecting ERUA universities with their social environments and their problems;
• Transferring and applying academic knowledge to contribute to solve European challenges with a social orientation;
• Improving entrepreneurship infrastructure/resources in higher education institutions for addressing societal challenges;
• Developing entrepreneurial spirit in internal and external stakeholders of ERUA universities.

The aim of WP7 is to boost student initiative, co-creation and engagement within the ERUA Alliance in order to advance democratic participation, social responsibility and mutual (intercultural) learning.

This will be achieved through the following:

• Establish Students’ Communication and Visibility within ERUA;
• Foster Student empowerment;
• Creating an Exchange Format on Social Justice and Intercultural Learning;
• Establish joint bottom-up student initiatives;
• Organising Young Forum for Action on Climate Change Era.

The aim of WP8 is to lead and coordinate ERUA communication efforts (in physical and virtual environment) both for improving internal community awareness, sense of belonging and long-term productive engagement, and for increase of visibility and impact among external stakeholders.

To achieve this we work:

• To establish a sustainable and effective communication and dissemination strategy both targeting internal and external audience.
• To implement impactful communication and dissemination activities.
• To successfully engage with external stakeholders.
• To develop and implement ERUA digital services providing various opportunities for learning, research and services to the ERUA community.