Una Europa launches seed funding initiative and new identity
Una Europa’s relaunched communications distinguish it from other alliances, articulating its unique scope and ambition to create a truly European University of the Future.
Una Europa’s relaunched communications distinguish it from other alliances, articulating its unique scope and ambition to create a truly European University of the Future.
Una Europa is an alliance of eight leading research universities; Freie Universität Berlin, Alma mater Studiorum Università di Bologna, The University of Edinburgh, Helsingin yliopisto, Uniwersytet Jagielloński w Krakowie, KU Leuven, Universidad Complutense de Madrid and Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne. Edinburgh is part of a unique alliance that, together, has been educating Europe for almost 1,000 years, currently teaching more than 400,000 students. The combined student and staff community approaches half a million people and the digital learners number in the millions. Una Europa aims to draw on our collective strengths to create a truly European inter-university environment, a University of the Future.
On 8 June 2020, the alliance has officially distinguished and solidified their identify from other alliances, with the launch of their new brand alongside eye-catching website, which allows you to truly understand the alliance’s unique ambitions.
Eight entities have joined to become one unit
Una Europa signifies ‘One Europe’, and such, the new circular logo represents our unity and connective force. A strong and impactful, yet simple symbol that encompasses the name itself. The overall exciting, contemporary and engaging brand deliberately clashes with the conventional world of traditional university branding. This signifies a change towards a new model from the alliance that will create new opportunities, new breadth and new perspective in looking forward and creating the University of the Future. Una Europa is leading initiatives to rethink higher education.
The alliance is united in diversity and is a university without borders. It aims to pave the way forward and prepare students and academics to have a real impact on the challenges of our times. This is the launch of the brand that will catapult these ambitions.
Seed funding – 2020 call open now
Una Europa launches an annual call for applications for seed funding. This 2020 call is open from 23 June to 15 October, 17:00 CEST. The aim of the seed funding initiative is to support the initiation of long-term collaborative activities between the Una Europa partner universities. The idea is to "plant a seed" that can eventually attract external funding.
Example of types of seed-funding initiatives could include activities such as; organising joint workshops or seminars and preparing joint formats for education or research.
The scheme is open to all academic disciplines and the project must be coordinate by senior academic or non-academic staff from one Una Europa university and involve senior staff from at least an additional three Una Europa universities. Read about the criteria for eligibility, and apply now before the deadline stated.
1Europe flagship project
The flagship project, 1Europe, launched in December 2019, with funding secured through the Erasmus+ programme under the European commission. 1Europe has begun to work towards the alliance’s aims via a range of projects and themes, including the Future UniLab, which will be a living laboratory to develop and test the new methodologies necessary to operate future universities.
Most recently, Una Europa launched UNA.TEN – “Transform Emergency Now! 10 days for change,” which refers to the ten-day cross-European student hackathon that took place form 27 April-8 May 2020. UNA.TEN is a pilot to test new methods of challenge-based learning in times of virtual mobility as part of Una Europa’s 1Europe project. This pilot brought together 100 students across seven of the partner universities, including Edinburgh, aimed at developing solutions to address real challenges in Covid-19 post-emergency times - based on an open innovation design process. The participating students are the first Una Europa students to attend a joint educational offering from the alliance, making UNA.TEN a particularly special event. They managed to jointly tackle European challenges at a local level and provide tailored solutions to four specific challenges:
- redefining entertainment and culture
- safeguarding privacy and preventing misconceptions in a digital world
- ensuring traveler safety and
- avoiding food waste.
Projects such as this are the catalysts that transform the joint ambition into concrete actions and will provide numerous other opportunities for Edinburgh staff and students to get involved.
Communicating Una Europa’s ambitions
Una Europa is just getting started. This new and distinctive branding will now distinguish Una Europa and help communicate the ambitions of the alliance to make a recognisable European university ecosystem, and lead and innovate in collaborative approaches to delivering education.