EU-CONEXUS, the European University for Smart Urban Coastal Sustainability, took stock of its 1st year

EU-CONEXUS, the European University for Smart Urban Coastal Sustainability, took stock of its 1^st year during an online conference gathering more than 260 participants from the 6 partner countries.

Following an Erasmus+ call, EU-CONEXUS has been selected by the European Commission as one of 17 European University Alliances and started its operation on 1^st of September 2019. Agricultural University of Athens participates in the project and collaborates with 5 partner universities who share the same values regarding education, research and cooperation and geographical specificities: La Rochelle Université (France), University of Zadar (Croatia), la Universidad Católica de Valencia (Spain), Technical University of Civil Engineering Bucharest (Romania) and Klaipeda University (Lithuania).

On the 1^st of July 2020, all project staff and contributors came together around the Governing Board to present their first achievements. This online Annual Closing Conference was also the opportunity to welcome and listen to Elena Tegovska from the European Commission’s DG for Education and Culture on the Commission’s view on the past and future of the European Universities initiative.

The teams of the 6 partner universities are working on 8 Work Packages: Management, Joint Study Programmes, Mobility, Joint Research, External and International Relations, Campus Life, Smart Campus, Sustainability and Dissemination. All activities aim at creating the University of the Future, based on transnational European cooperation. Students, researchers, teachers and staff members mobility will encourage multilateral exchanges and will enable the development of common responses to the challenges of urbanised coastal areas in terms of sustainability.