A Key Seminar of European Universities to be Held in Pécs

The European Commission has launched EDUC, short for European Digital UniverCity, in 2019 with a budget of 5 million Euros with the University of Pécs (UP) as a proud member of this outstanding consortium. Based on the discussions among the members of the consortium in the last months, it has been decided that the University of Pécs is going to be hosting the seminar titled “Life-long health and prosperity” to be held this year.

EDUC, (European Digital UniverCity) will strengthen the European identification process by enhancing knowledge creation and by putting forward European skills acquisition through digitally supported cross-campus and cross-disciplinary teaching activities as well as various learning opportunities. Co-funded by the Erasmus+ program, the project has been launched in autumn 2019 utilising the cooperation of six international university partners of five EU member states. Partners of the University of Pécs in this alliance include the University of Potsdam (Germany) as the leader of the consortium, Masaryk University in Brno (Czech Republic), University Paris Nanterre (France), University de Rennes 1 (France) and the University of Cagliari (Italy).

Professor József Betlehem, Vice Rector for General Affairs, Connections and Strategic Affairs informed us about the latest news: “Following the complex and hard work during the last six months

we have reached an important milestone

as part of the ninth work-package lead by the University of Cagliari, Harmonizing education and research. On the one hand, we have selected the research topics, in which we will facilitate the cooperation the education and research of the six universities in the following years. On the other hand, w have also selected the indicators, along which we have to measure the success of the project” – shared József Betlehem.

In order to harmonize the topics with the most important characteristic of the EDUC alliance, multidisciplinarity, the following research topics have been selected, indicating the organizer, the host of the given seminar in brackets:

1. Life-long health and wellbeing (University of Pécs, Hungary)
2. Cyber security and artificial intelligence (Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republic)
3. European Union Studies (University of Cagliari, Italy)
4. Sustainable changes: climate and resources (University of Potsdam, Germany)
5. Justice, inequalities and inclusion (University Paris Nanterre, France)
6. Mobility / smart cities (University de Rennes 1, France)
7. Culture and heritage (University Paris Nanterre, France)

Dr. István Tarrósy, the Director of the Centre for Internationalization and Connections outlined further plans of the alliance: “The next step is to organize seminars on certain topics, which will create opportunities for PhD students and leading researchers of EDUC universities

to meet in person, to introduce their field of expertise, to discuss new cooperation opportunities

or to broaden their cooperation by including more partners. The EDUC Alliance and the French government will finance several mobility programmes in order to motivate PhD students and researchers of EDUC universities to participate in seminars that are most relevant to them.” – summarized István Tarrósy.

Due to the state of emergency caused by the COVID-19 virus the seminars might start in autumn, however, about the details of the seminar, such as schedule and participation criteria, the University of Pécs will share information immediately after the agenda has been finalized.

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• Imminent Digital Educational Revolution – with the University of Pécs as one of the Partners »