Faßmann: 2.1 million euros for innovative participation in European Universities Alliances
The Federal Ministry of Education, Science and Research (BMBWF) provides – via the OeAD, the Agency for Education and Internationalisation – a total of 2.1 million euros as "supplementary funding" for those eight Austrian higher education institutions that successfully participate in one of 41 European Universities Alliances. "I am pleased with the five Austrian universities and three Austrian universities of applied sciences’ broad commitment to this European initiative. This is about innovative forms of long-term, transnational, European cooperation in studies and teaching, research and innovation the likes of which have never been seen before," emphasises the Minister for Education and Science, Heinz Faßmann. By 2024 joint, excellent European higher education institutions are to be created at which studying, teaching and research will be possible without borders, regardless of where the individual higher education institution is located.
Each participating higher education institution will receive 225,000 euros and each higher education institution coordinating a project will receive 375,000 euros over a period of three years.
Each higher education institution that participates in a European Universities Alliance will receive 225,000 euros for the current three-year term of the pilot projects. Those two universities, the Montanuniversität Leoben and the University of Applied Sciences St. Pölten, that have a coordinating role in their alliances "EURECA-Pro" and "E³UDRES²" will each receive 375,000 euros for the three-year pilot project term. The project will be managed by the OeAD, which, as national agency, is responsible for implementing the EU programme Erasmus+ in Austria.
"The European Universities Alliances are a very decisive step towards strengthening and further developing the European Higher Education Area. It is a very positive thing that the Austrian universities are at the forefront of this process. Of course, the OeAD wants to actively support them in this," says the OeAD’s managing director Jakob Calice.
EU Educational Council: The next steps towards a comprehensive European Education Area have been taken today
The EU Commission plans to create a common, comprehensive "European Education Area" by 2025, encompassing school education and vocational education and training as well as higher education. The basic idea behind this is that pupils, students and teachers can learn and teach in Europe without barriers. Besides the strategic orientation of the European Education Area new common objectives in the field of general education and vocational education and training will be developed in the coming months. Global challenges such as digitisation and ecological change are also on the agenda. Today, Monday, the competent European Ministers of Education met at their ministerial conference, which was held digitally for corona reasons. Austria was represented by Minister Faßmann.
European Universities Alliances are an important step towards European integration
The European Universities Alliances are an important step in this direction. They were selected in two rounds of application. The University of Graz and the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences (BOKU) were among the pioneers in the first round of calls for proposals in 2019. In the second round, which took place in the first half of 2020, projects and project participations of the Montanuniversität Leoben, the St. Pölten University of Applied Sciences, the Management Center Innsbruck, the University of Applied Sciences Vorarlberg, the University of Innsbruck and the Vienna University of Economics and Business were added – with the first two acting as coordinating higher education institutions in their respective alliances.
With the 2.1 million euros in systematic, national additional funding the Federal Ministry of Education, Science and Research (BMBWF) and the OeAD are responding to the European Commission's call for sustainable and adequate funding of "European Universities Initiatives" at both European and national level. The European Commission itself funds them with up to five million euros each for a period of three years. An additional up to two million euros may come from the research framework programme "Horizon Europe", for which the alliances were able to apply for the research-related parts of their projects.
Overview of the eight projects in which Austrian higher education institutions are involved:
1. ARQUS – University of Graz
Project website https://www.arqus-alliance.eu
2. EPICUR – University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Vienna
Project website https://epicur.education
3. Montanuniversität Leoben – EURECA-PRO
Project website https://www.eurecapro.eu
4. St. Pölten University of Applied Sciences – E³UDRES²
Project website: http://eudres.eu; for more information see https://www.fhstp.ac.at/de
5. University of Applied Sciences Management Center Innsbruck – UlyssEUS; for more information see https://www.mci.edu/de
6. RUN-EU – University of Applied Sciences Vorarlberg
Project website https://run-eu.eu
7. Aurora European University Alliance – University of Innsbruck
Project website https://alliance.aurora-network.global
8. ENGAGE.EU – Vienna University of Economics and Business https://engageuniversity.eu
For further information see the Federal Ministry of Education, Science and Research (BMBWF)’s website: https://www.bmbwf.gv.at/eui and the OeAD’s website: https://bildung.erasmusplus.at/de/hochschulbildung/european-universities
For further information please contact:
Federal Ministry of Education, Science and Research
Mag. Debora Knob
Press Officer
01 53120-5026
debora.knob@bmbwf.gv.at
Digital press kit: http://www.ots.at/pressemappe/43/aom