On Tuesday, 19 March 2024, the University of Luxembourg hosted the closing conference of the Erasmus+ co-funded project "Leg-UniGR: Blueprint for a legal entity for cross-border university alliances" on Belval Campus. Representatives of the seven UniGR partner universities and political stakeholders from the Greater Region met to discuss a new legal framework for the cross-border alliance UniGR.
Coordinated by the University of Luxembourg in close cooperation with UniGR a.s.b.l. and the other six partner universities, the project is one of the four Erasmus+ pilot projects in which a legal status for European university alliances was tested. In this context, Leg-UniGR analysed the feasibility of a new legal status for the cross-border university network. After 12 months, the project is coming to an end and the results have been officially presented to the Greater Region higher education community.
University of Luxembourg’s rector Jens KREISEL opened the event underlining the importance of partnership and collaboration as the most efficient response to the challenges of our societies.
Tine DELVA, Deputy Head of Unit for Higher Education in the European Commission's Directorate-General for Education, Youth, Sport, and Culture, then presented the status of the other nine ongoing pilot projects and gave an update on the political context.
Leg-UniGR project coordinator Eric TSCHIRHART then summarised the results of the project and gave an outlook on the last steps.
During two round tables, executive representatives of the UniGR partner universities (Jens KREISEL - University of Luxembourg, Hélène BOULANGER – Université de Lorraine, Eva-Martha ECKKRAMMER – Trier University, Pierre DUYSINX – Université de Liège, Claudia POLZIN-HAUMANN – Saarland University) and political stakeholders from the Greater Region's higher education sector (Romain MARTIN – Ministry of Higher Education and Research in Luxembourg, Isabelle HALLEUX – Expert to the Cabinet of the Minister for Higher Education and Scientific Research of the Fédération Wallonie-Bruxelles, Sébastien DESCOTES-GENON – Ministry of Higher Education and Research of the Région Académique Grand Est) reflected on the topic and discussed the development of the University of the Greater Region alliance and its potential through the future change in legal status. The following points were discussed in detail:
- UniGR as a model of cross-border university
- The essential foundations for a long-term partnership between universities
- The added value of a European legal status
- The Support and challenges from a national point of view
- The development of research cooperation within the Greater Region
- The implementation of shared Doctoral schools in critical domains such as Artificial Intelligence, High Performance computing but also Social and Human Sciences, to respond to the challenges of our societies.
Université de Lorraine’s president and UniGR’ s current president Hélène BOULANGER concluded the event by looking back on the alliances 15 years of successful cooperation and giving an outlook on strengthening the partnership through the transition to a European-regulated legal framework.
All future developments relating to the legal status of UniGR can be followed here: https://legunigr.uni.lu/ & https://www.uni-gr.eu/en
Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Education and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA). Neither the European Union nor EACEA can be held responsible for them.