Ulysseus brings together students and researchers from the alliance for a Summit in Košice
For two days, participants will discuss the future academic offer of Ulysseus, the work in the field of research and innovation and how researchers and students can collaborate in the creation process of the University.
Nearly a hundred members of the Ulysseus community are participating in the first Ulysseus Summit in Košice, the home city of the Technical University of Košice, TUKE – one of the members of the alliance, from today until Thursday.
Among the attendees to the event there are university representatives, academics, researchers, students and staff members from the partner universities of the Ulysseus alliance: University of Seville in Spain, Université Cote D’Azur in France, University of Genoa in Italy, Technical University of Košice in Slovakia, MCI | The Entrepreneurial School® in Austria and the Haaga-Helia University of Applied Sciences in Finland.
The event started with a presentation and a press conference with the participation of the rectors of the University of TUKE, Stanislav Kmeť – as the host of the event – the University of Seville, Miguel Ángel Castro – as the coordinator of the project – and the rectors of Université Cote D’Azur, Jeanick Brisswalter, and MCI | The Entrepreneurial School®, Andreas Altmann, the Vice President for Competences, RDI and Digitalisation in Haaga Helia, Salla Huttunen and University of Genoa representatives. The President of Košice Self-governing Region and the Vice Mayor of the City of Košice also participated in the event.
At the beginning of his speech, the Rector of the University of Seville, Miguel Ángel Castro, stressed the situation that Europe is currently experiencing, as well as the ”importance of the European values of respect for human dignity, freedom, democracy, equality, the rule of law and human rights”, and how Ulysseus University is ”fully committed to these values and firmly believes in education, research and innovation as fundamental pillars of their defense”.
“We are here today to jointly extend our hands to the Ukrainians and to stand in solidarity with all the people and institutions suffering the unfair consequences of war”, he added before insisting on the importance “of continuing creating safe and inclusive learning spaces, for scientific and social progress in the heart of Europe”.
Research & Innovation Agenda
The Summit agenda includes a Compass forum to review the progress of the project which is leading Ulysseus to become a European University excellence model through Research and Innovation. Compass is an Ulysseus’ Horizon 2020 project and the flagship for its R&I agenda and strategy. The broad objective of Ulysseus is to develop on an innovation ecosystem that finds solutions to the key issues of businesses and society through a cross-disciplinary approach.
Moreover, the Summit includes an agenda for researchers from the six partners universities. This provides them an unique opportunity to work in areas such as R&I of robotics, data and Artificial Intelligence. They will also engage in brainstorming sessions on upcoming ideas for Horizon Europe calls for proposals.
Finally, they will visit selected excellent research TUKE workplaces and partners sites such as the Hydrogen Technology Centre, the Prototyping and Innovation Centre and the Institute of Automation, Mechatronics, Robotics and Production Systems.
Students’ meeting
Ulysseus engages students from the very beginning in the bottom-up process of constructing the European University. Throughout this Summit, students will have the chance to discuss how to establish and develop the Ulysseus Student Association
The event will also bring together students from different fields to further shape the ideas for designing the Open Classes sites for Ulysseus, following-up the results from the online workshop organized in the beginning of April.
Academic offer and joint Degrees
One of the key topics to be discussed during the event are the approaches to reach agreements on Ulysseus’ academic development of joint programmes. In line with its vision to foster mobility opportunities and cooperation among its partner universities, Ulysseus European University has put in place its first two double master’s degrees’ agreements, which will be approved and signed in Helsinki next June.
Moreover, Ulysseus is working on its first joint Master and Doctoral Degrees in Energy, Transport and Mobility for the Smart Cities of the future and is offering individual partners courses and preparing joint entrepreneurship, sustainability and language joint courses for developing the skills for the future. Ulysseus teachers and non-academic staff will also count on specific skills training programmes before the end of the year.
About Ulysseus
Ulysseus is one of the 41 European Universities selected by the European Commission to become the universities of the future. Led by the University of Seville together with five other universities in Europe (the University of Genoa, Italy; Université Côte d’Azur, France; the Technical University of Košice, Slovakia; MCI | The Entrepreneurial School®, Austria; and Haaga-Helia University of Applied Sciences, Finland), the project will allow students, researchers and graduates to move freely between universities, carry out internships in companies and start high-impact research projects.