What does it mean for your University to be part of the Coimbra Group?
For Trinity College Dublin the Coimbra Group is a network of trusted partners and friends, based on common values and a joint vision, building on an invaluable wealth of established relationships and shared experiences over 4o years. Through a broad range of collaborative initiatives and activities at all levels of university life the Coimbra Group has enriched our institution in teaching, learning, research, public engagement and, most of all, internationalisation. Being part of the Coimbra Group has enhanced our voice in strategic discussions on European Higher Education policies and has sharpened our internationalisation strategies. Working with peer institutions from all over Europe continues to benefit our academic life at all levels, raises our awareness how much we can learn from each other and strengthens our resolve to work tirelessly for our common goals: fearless critical enquiry and the fostering of tolerance, democracy, equality, sustainability, freedom and civic responsibility. The motto of the Coimbra Group ‘A tradition of Innovation’ and the motto of the European Union ‘Unity in diversity’ together encapsulate well what in our view drives the Coimbra Group and what makes it distinct in the European and global educational landscape. In our work together we are drawing strength from our different perspectives, and determination, courage and hope from our sense of community and friendship.
What’s your favourite memory/experience?
There are so many but the one to mention here is the High-Level Seminar for Rectors and Vice-Rectors of Education hosted by Trinity College in 2017 on Internationalisation of the Curriculum. It stands out because it is a perfect example of how the institution and the network enrich and energize each other. We hosted the meeting in the middle of our biggest reform of undergraduate education in more than half of a century, the Trinity Education Project, which as a key objective had a significant strengthening of the international experience for our students. Together with the Coimbra Group’s Education Innovation Working Group we invited leading experts on an as yet underdeveloped aspect of internationalisation to give their experiences, perspectives and recommendations. The seminar was opened with an inspiring keynote of Trinity’s then Provost and President on the principles of our curriculum reform. This was followed by rich and exciting presentations and debates which invigorated Trinity’s own reform process and also led to important initiatives within the Coimbra Group, the most important of which was a comprehensive survey of the state of internationalisation at our member universities. This unique and pioneering study subsequently became an important tool for the network but was also widely noticed in wider European Higher Education circles.
How can the Coimbra Group most effectively shape the future of higher education and research in your opinion?
In our current world, where borders are being closed, where cooperation on many fronts makes way to confrontation and where academic freedom, diversity and inclusion are threatened to an extent only recently thought unthinkable, the importance of strong networks of partners and friends based on trust, a common history, shared values and a joint vision is greater than ever before. In its early days, the Coimbra Group had a strong focus on mobility. In recent decades this has been complemented very successfully with impressive strides in increased research cooperation and, more lately, with greatly increased visibility and influence in Brussels and European Higher Education policy making more generally. In the current situation the Coimbra Group should use its formidable networks of established links and trusted relationships to strengthen and develop academic exchange and mobility at a time when it is under threat on so many fronts. Equally, the Coimbra Group should continue to use its prominent position among the established and the more recent European university associations and alliances to promote, courageously and distinctively, the perspective of long-established and comprehensive research universities with a strong commitment to society and the greater good.
- How would you describe the Coimbra Group in one word?
Collective wisdom. If that is inadmissible because it is two words: Connectedness
Jürgen Barkhoff, Fellow Emeritus, Trinity College Dublin