The consortium of young European universities NEOLAiA, coordinated by the University of Jaén, held its first face-to-face meetings since January 2020 on November 15 and 16. The meetings took place in Rome and at the University of Salerno, in Italy, and more than twenty participants from the eight partner universities attended.
During the meetings, all the updated Work Packages were presented, taking into consideration the contributions of the partner universities and the new activities; defining the lines of action and setting the deadlines for the drafting of the project. In particular, common resources will be mapped, with emphasis on research, inclusion, teaching, entrepreneurship infrastructures and mobility of students, teachers and administrative staff in order to facilitate the operation of the consortium.
In addition, new initiatives such as the creation of the figure of the NEOLAiA university ombudsman, participation in the Scholars at Risk program and the creation of informative material about the consortium were also proposed. In the end, NEOLAiA highlights the progress made in terms of collaboration, definition of work areas and programming of the future activities.
The NEOLAiA consortium is made up of eight universities: the University of Ostrava (Czech Republic), Stefal cel Mare University of Suceava (Romania), the University of Bielefeld (Germany), the State University of Siauliai (Lithuania), the University of Orebro (Sweden), the University of Salerno (Italy), the University of Tours (France) and the University of Jaen (Spain), coordinator of the group. These are 8 young European universities, of medium or small size, that are committed to their social and economic environment and with a preponderant position in rankings, particularly those that analyse the positioning of young universities, such as ‘THE Young Universities’. In total, these eight universities have more than 142,000 students and more than 10,000 international mobility students.
The NEOLAiA consortium, whose motto is ‘Young Universities Empowering regionally rooted European talents’, is structured around eight work packages that define the alliance’s management areas: mobility; teaching; research; entrepreneurship; diversity and inclusion; multiculturalism and multilingualism and sustainability/dissemination of the project actions. The objective is to generate a common resources structure that facilitates synergies in the above aspects and to improve the position and effectiveness of the universities that make up the consortium in the medium and long term. In parallel to the organization of activities, the group is already working on the presentation of the project to attract funding in 2022.
Original article: https://diariodigital.ujaen.es/internacional/reunion-en-italia-del-consorcio-de-jovenes-universidades-europeas-neolaia-que