News

Erasmus+ & active citizenship

The Coimbra Group was one of the guests at a panel discussion on ‘Fostering Active Citizenship through Erasmus’. The event took place at the European Parliament on 23 May, organised by the Erasmus Student Network with the support of MEP Brando Benifei. The initiative comes as a follow-up to a paper that ESN wrote together […]

Poitiers Declaration – update

We are delighted to announce that during this past month three new member universities signed the Poitiers Declaration together with the mayors of their cities. Leiden, Leuven and Granada are the new signatories to the Declaration, which was first presented at the conference “University and the City” in Poitiers on 9 June 2016. This brings […]

ICMED 2nd project meeting

The second meeting of the ICMED Project took place at the beginning of this month hosted by the University of Granada.  “International Credit Mobility: a new challenge for the Mediterranean Region” is a project coordinated by the University of Padova and the consortium includes not only the Coimbra Group as a network but also our […]

Agenda Research & Innovation

From the European Commission Press Release,15 May 2018

 A renewed agenda for Research and Innovation: Europe’s chance to shape the future

The Commission has presented its contribution to the informal discussion that Heads of State and Government held in Sofia on 16 May 2018 on research and innovation and the steps needed to ensure Europe’s global competitiveness.

Summer School Multilingualism

As announced in the April Newsletter, the Development Cooperation Working Group has organised the Coimbra Group International Summer School on European Multilingualism, to be hosted by the University of Novi Sad, Serbia, from 7 to 14 July. The updated programme is available on our website: https://www.coimbra-group.eu/activities/summer-schools We take this opportunity to remind you that registration […]

670th Anniversary of Charles University and the Role of Universities in Today’s World

by Tomáš Zima
Rector Charles University

In April 2018, 670 years have passed since the Czech King and Roman Emperor Charles IV founded a university in Prague. He did so in the hope to uplift through it the Czech Kingdom, its capital and education in general. The newly founded university, first north of the Alps and east of the French border, was thus given a difficult target – to compete with the best contemporary universities in Bologna, Oxford and Paris. Only a successful university could have contributed to the firm anchoring of the Czech Kingdom in the European West where it belonged, as the sovereign was convinced…

CG statement on the Bologna Process

Following the debate at the High-Level Seminar “Lifelong Learning and Employability” on 24 January 2018 in Brussels, the Executive Board of the Coimbra Group initiated a discussion on the Bologna Process and current developments in higher education, notably in European Union policies. After consultation with the Rectors’ Advisory Group and Rectors at the thirty-nine member […]

Back to the future: the cultural heritage of universities

by Christa Neuper
Rector University of Graz

Universities shoulder a great deal of responsibility. Through their research, on the one hand, which makes a major contribution to the development of human society. And through their teaching, which ensures high-quality education for future generations. Another element is the significant cultural heritage shared in particular by the tradition-rich universities of Europe, brought together under the umbrella of the Coimbra Group. The universities of our network have recognised how important this is and founded the “Heritage” working group in response…

Interfacing Minorities: Creative Hybridity and Unexpected Environments, Åbo Akademi University 8-9 March 2018

We are happy to publish the report of the conference “Interfacing Minorities: Creative Hybridity and Unexpected Environments” , organised by Åbo Akademi University, with support from the SSH Working Group, on 8-9 March 2018.

2018 Laureate of the Arenberg-Coimbra Group Prize for Erasmus Students

The Selection Committee established by the Executive Board for the 2018 Arenberg-Coimbra Group Prize for Erasmus Students is pleased to unanimously nominate Mr Arnab Dutta from the University of Göttingen (Germany) for this year’s award. Mr Dutta spent his 5-month Erasmus exchange as part of his Erasmus Mundus Euroculture Master programme at the Rijksuniversiteit Groningen […]

Joint call to double the research budget

On 21 March thirteen research university networks published a joint statement calling for a doubling of the budget for research and innovation in the coming Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF 2020-2027). The Coimbra Group signed up to the statement together with twelve other networks and you can find the statement here. The joint statement is a […]

The evolution of the modernisation agenda for higher education

by Eva Åkesson
Rector Uppsala University

On 24 January, the Coimbra Group broke new ground by holding its first High-Level Workshop on Lifelong Learning and Employability. The Workshop was a great success and bodes well for similar events in the future, bringing Coimbra Group university leaders together with European higher education experts and policymakers to discuss how comprehensive, research-intensive universities can contribute constructively to the higher education modernisation agenda…

CG statement on European Universities Networks

The Coimbra Group Executive Board has released a statement on European Universities Networks. “The Coimbra Group Executive Board calls for urgent clarification of the concept of “European Universities Networks”. (…) Existing Higher Education networks have a crucial role to play at European level in facilitating effective cooperation based on their extensive accumulated experience and expertise. […]

Reflections for European research policies: outcomes of the Estonian Presidency of the Council of the EU

by Taivo Raud
Head of Research Policy Department, Estonian Ministry of Education and Research and as of the 1st of January 2018, Head of the Research Department of the University of Tartu

Estonia assumed the Presidency of the Council of the EU for the first time in history in the second half of 2017. For the Presidency, we had two priorities in the field of research and innovation – first was building the stronger case for increased investments in R&I, and the second to start the discussion on how to rationalize the EU research funding landscape…

High-Level Workshop on “Lifelong Learning and Employability”

The Coimbra Group is organizing the First Coimbra Group High-Level Workshop on “Lifelong Learning and Employability”, taking place next 24 January 2018 (14h-18h30) in the Permanent Representation of the Czech Republic to the EU (Brussels). This event aims at bringing Rectors from the Coimbra Group Universities together with European Higher Education Experts and Policymakers to […]

A reflection on renewing the undergraduate curriculum and the influence of globalisation on higher education

by Patrick Prendergast
Provost & President Trinity College Dublin

Ego Mundi Civis Esse Cupio – ‘I long to be a citizen of the world’. This very Renaissance sentiment, as expressed by Erasmus in the 16th century, has been turning round in my mind ever since I first heard it. I used it in my inaugural address, when I was elected Provost in 2011, to encapsulate what I wished for our students.

Do we have Good Women in Science?

From the Doctoral Studies WG A tradition in the Fall: the Nobel Prizes. Once more, women are not represented in the list of Nobel Prize winners. This is also becoming a tradition, but we should not get used to it. We should reflect on what is happening to women in Science in 2017, because it […]

A reflection on the evolution of higher education and research policies of the European Union, within the perspective of the Brexit vote

by Sir Timothy O’Shea
Principal University of Edinburgh

These are interesting times in Higher Education and Brexit, of course, poses a variety of new challenges for universities.
The University of Edinburgh is, and always will be, a truly global university…

Executive Board statement: university autonomy in Catalonia

The Coimbra Group Executive Board follows the political development in Catalonia with great concern, in particular with respect to the situation of Higher Education and Research Institutions, the University of Barcelona being a long-standing and valued member of the Coimbra Group of Universities. Hoping for a collaborative, reasoned solution to the overall situation, the Coimbra […]

Improving Erasmus+, extending our reach: the Coimbra Group at EAIE 2017

By Dorothy Kelly, Henri Luchian and Joaquim Ramos de Carvalho The Coimbra Group participated actively at the annual conference of the European Association for International Educational Education (EAIE), which took place in Seville in September. With over 6,000 participants from 95 countries, EAIE 2017 was an opportunity to engage with a wide audience in topics […]