aUPaEU

A University Partnership for Acceleration of European Universities (aUPaEU) is the first collaborative project between two European university alliances, Unite! and EPICUR.

The University Partnership for Acceleration of European Universities (aUPaEU) project has received €3.4 million in funding from the European Commission under the European Research Area call for proposals (HORIZON-WIDERA-2022-ERA-01) for the integration and implementation of acceleration services and will start in January 2023.

aUPaEU is based on the collaboration of five academic institutions that are part of two university alliances. On the EPICUR site: Uniwersytet im. Adama Mickiewicza w Poznaniu, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT). For Unite! Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya - BarcelonaTech, IThinkUPC, Grenoble INP - UGA Institut d'ingénierie et de management, Politecnico di Torino.

With this collaboration, the partners aim to integrate and implement acceleration services within a coordinated support system for higher education institutions, networks, higher education alliances and their umbrella organizations.

Based on the Greek concept of agora, the project aims to create a shared space where all stakeholders can offer and access acceleration services while contributing their knowledge and experience. Access to this space will be accessible, diverse and inclusive.

"All European higher education institutions need better tools and services to support digital teaching, from admissions and document exchange to the lectures themselves and the transfer of certificates. Both alliances are working together to provide such improved technical and procedural services. The acceleration services to be developed in aUPaEU will help drive the institutional change in research and innovation currently being pursued in the EPICUR Alliance with the pilot activities of the EPICUR research project," 

        -  Professor Dr. Thomas Hirth, Vice President for Transfer and International Affairs at KIT.

The goal of aUPaEU is to develop methodologies, sustainability plans, coaching services and tangible digital technologies to create an acceleration agora. HEIs, HEI networks and alliances will achieve integrated, collaborative and long-term R&I transformations through this accelerated agora, which will focus on six main areas of the HEI transformation agenda: Capacity, Infrastructure and Resource Sharing, Research Career Attractiveness, Collaboration with F&I Ecosystem Stakeholders, Open Science, Societal Acceptance, and Equity.

For Michael Zacherle, coordinator of EPICUR-Research and liaison officer for aUPaEU, "the collaboration of aUPaEu partners aims to develop and implement models of acceleration services for similar organizations, especially those in countries that are expanding. This will help all interested universities to have direct access to new services developed from the results of the EPICUR-Research and UNITE.H2020 projects and their collective experience in European higher education institutions, networks, university alliances and their umbrella organizations."

"The aUPaEU project is a direct result of the ongoing work of the two European University Alliances. It is impressive what the alliances have already achieved in less than three years. Joining forces to achieve synergies is the next logical step to maximize cooperation between universities and improve the experience for professors, students and administration," 

      -   Prof. UAM dr. hab. Rafał Witkowski, vice rector for international cooperation at AMU.