Since its creation, EPICUR, like the other alliances, is contributing to build ever closer relationships between universities from different European countries.
Within EPICUR, teams from 9 higher education institutions from 7 countries are working together on projects, courses pathways and policies to create the university of the future. This is to provide new opportunities through which they will prepare well-informed, open-minded and responsible European citizens, capable of creating new knowledge and becoming drivers of transnational innovation.
EPICUR focuses on an open and inclusive approach through new digital tools to simplify and facilitate the mobility of all members of the academic community. This is done by offering innovative pathways and new pedagogies for language learning, through Slavic, Northern and Greek language courses and training for mobility by learning the languages of the alliance. But also by providing courses inspired by the Libeal Arts and Sciences approach, focusing on two themes, sustainable development and European identities.
Among this courses, EPICUR launched the EPIC Missions. These are group projects in which students from across Europe come together to tackle real-world challenges on behalf of real-world stakeholders with the academic support of their mission guides. EPIC Missions are blended mobility opportunities that start with an in-person kick-off event, followed by online collaboration throughout the mission period and a physical reunion at the end.
These new approaches are mainly based on the creation of an inter-university virtual campus. One of the major steps in this pilot phase. Epicur was the first alliance to create a platform allowing all members of its universities to log in with their local logins to access resources shared by all 9 universities, but above all to allow teachers and students to facilitate the entire registration process and course follow-up in one area.
Finally, the EPICUR alliance, through its project-based approach and open governance, allows any external or internal structure, as well as individuals, to come forward with projects and actions to enhance and broaden the opportunities by facilitating exchanges among all partners. This allows EPICUR to achieve together what each of our universities cannot achieve alone.
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In September, 29 undergraduate and graduate students from EPICUR universities participated in the entrepreneurial summer school at the University of Thessaloniki in Greece.
The EPICUR members, after the difficulties in travelling due to COVID, were able to meet at different events such as the EPCIUR networking conference in Vienna in May 2022 or at annual forums such as the one held in Freiburg.
