Thinking Ahead Together with EUTOPIA: Annual Meeting of Local Facilitators in Barcelona

What unites EUTOPIA across universities and countries also brings people together in person once a year: the local facilitators from the partner universities. The annual meeting provides an opportunity for personal exchange, new perspectives, and a shared vision for the alliance’s future development. They share experiences, critically evaluate their own work, develop new ideas, and plan the next steps together. This year, the meeting brought the Local Facilitators to Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona on September 17, 18, and 19.

At their respective universities, the local facilitators bring together people and ideas within the EUTOPIA Alliance. An important part of their work is connecting researchers, creating academic links, and initiating new collaborations across university and national borders. At the same time, they support faculty members who are already collaborating in the Connected Communities, foster their further development, and help turn initial contacts into long-term collaborations. In this way, the Local Facilitators help ensure that the European network gives rise to concrete joint activities in teaching and research.

This is precisely why the exchange among the Local Facilitators is so important. In Barcelona, the experiences and perspectives of the various partner universities came together. The participants also took a closer look at their own work: What has proven successful? Where are the challenges? What kind of support is needed? And where are new opportunities for collaboration within the alliance emerging? The Local Facilitators shared experiences from their universities and discussed how existing collaborations can be further developed and new connections fostered.

They also looked back on the past few years with EUTOPIA MORE. Topics included the recognition and funding of joint activities, research-based learning and open science, opportunities for mobility between partner universities, as well as the visibility and communication of activities. Comparing these different experiences in particular highlighted just how varied the conditions and approaches can be at individual universities—and how much potential lies in mutual learning.

This year, special attention was given to EUTOPIA’s Global Partners. The various partner universities were introduced, along with their profiles, core research areas, and potential areas for future collaboration. It became clear just how much academic potential these internationally renowned universities, with their expertise in various research fields, bring to the expanded EUTOPIA network. For the local facilitators, this broader view beyond the European partner universities opens up new perspectives for initiating further contacts and collaborations among researchers in the future.

The meeting also marked an important transition. With the conclusion of EUTOPIA MORE and the focus now on EUTOPIA EDGE, the goal was not only to take stock but also to look ahead to the coming years. What lessons should be learned? What should be further developed? And how can what has been built over the past few years continue to grow in the future?

At TUD, the role of Local Facilitator is based at the Center for Interdisciplinary Learning and Teaching (ZiLL). From here, faculty and existing communities are supported, contacts within the EUTOPIA network are established, and new collaborations are initiated. At the same time, experiences from TUD feed into the alliance’s joint work, and new ideas from the partner universities flow back to Dresden.

Barcelona offered something that is particularly valuable in the day-to-day work of a European university alliance: time for personal exchange. Different experiences, contacts, and ideas gave rise to new perspectives for our joint work and new opportunities to further develop EUTOPIA at the individual universities.

© Sven Ellger

Project Associate

Name

Kerstin Le Merdy

EUTOPIA MORE Local Facilitator

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