 Hello, welcome. We're just waiting for, I see that people are still, colleagues are still coming into the room, but I just wanted, I think we can start now. My name is Jan Palmoski, I'm the Secretary General of the Guild and I really want to welcome you for our seminar on transnational collaboration and mobility in higher education, looking back and looking forward. And this seminar is really, really marks an important point of our next insight paper on education on this topic of transnational collaboration and mobility. And it follows on from an early insight paper that we've written and that we've published in 2021. And from that earlier process as this one has been really led by a writing team of four colleagues, Joe Anguri in the leadership but also Karen Amos, the vice rector of education at the University of Tübingen, Birit Aika, who's the pro-rector at the University of Aarhus, and also Aona Falk, who's also the vice rector of education at the University of Tartu. And both insight papers have really been very closely shepherded by them, conceptualized by them in close collaboration of course with our working group and with also our vice presidents and other fora, but also external fora such as seminars like these. And if I may just share my two most single moments that give you a sense of these, what this process looked like and how we've come to this point. So if I were to describe this in two impressions, one was in a black night of the 27th of December of 2020 when the writing team met yet again, and there was Aona Falk dialing in from the middle of nowhere somewhere out in the countryside. It was pitch black around her. It was the turn of the new year, but the dedication of the writing team was such that they still held that meeting and they still pushed forward. So it was a really close collaboration of a meeting that of colleagues that really met very, very frequently. And when it came then to the kind of culmination of that first insight paper that we released in early June of 2021, and this would have been about February or March, suddenly Ivana joined my office, Ivana Dedak, our senior policy officer joined our office one day and said to me, you know what, great news, the writing team is just decided we're going to do another insight paper. And I was like, but we still haven't got the first one. But basically the idea of this insight paper has gone back for a long time and it's come straight out of this wider reflection that we had at the time on what the post-digital education should look like in research intensive universities, our post-COVID pandemic experience, how should that inform how we do things. And clearly we have entered into a new phase, not just, but mainly also inspired by the European University's initiative. And this is why I think the second insight paper that we're going to discuss today is just so timely. And we want to zoom in, in particular on some recommendations in greater detail on about the added value of international collaboration that we mentioned then, in particular around the tools and the flexible regulatory frameworks that we need and how we make this sustainable, how we make pedagogical innovation in mobility, in relation to mobility, how we make that sustainable and how we make it recognized. And I think the timing of these questions of the seminars is hugely important. We currently have six pilot projects that are identifying what a European degree might look like. And this is really, in a sense, from the perspective of alliances, I think it is clearly important to answer what the precise added value of European university degrees is like. After the seminar, so this discussion forms the final stage, indeed, in the formulation of our insight paper. We will present to you, starting with Joe in a minute, we will present to you the key findings of the insight paper, the key ideas and conclusions and recommendations. And that will be followed by a more in-depth study of one of the implications of these insight papers from the example of the civil alliance before we will then go into discussion of the panel. And I would encourage you to join in the discussion. And as you do so, please use the Q&A function here, engage on Twitter with our hashtag future, hashtag future of education so that we can really ensure that this discussion is as interactive as possible. So just to introduce to you the other members of the panel, beyond Joe and Karin here, we have Rafaela Campanella from the University of Bologna. She's a vice company. She's a vice rector from the University of Bologna for international relations. And she's also the representing here the UNO-EUROPA alliance. We have Andrés Fasbeten with us who is the deputy head of the international elections office at the again the university and who's also involved in the United Alliance. We have Florian Pachenka who is a graduate from the University of Vienna and has worked since 2005 at the Ministry of Education and has been at a shea in Brussels where he's since 2010, where he's now the head of the unit for education. And finally we have Vida Petersen who is currently the European programs director at the Norwegian director for high education and skills and was also the national agency director for Norway for the Erasmus Plus program. So I would like to welcome the panel. I would welcome the audience for this seminar and really to kick us off, I would really now invite Joe Anguri to really present this forthcoming inside paper really by way of really inviting all of you to engage in this discussion about some of the key findings based on quite extensive not only discussions within the Guild but also research amongst the Guild members. Joe, close yours. Thank you Jan. And I would also like to start by thanking the writing team for my end too. The paper is the product of two years' work and ongoing good collaboration, products of collaboration between us as well as the Guild's education leaders group and of course we hope it provides a space for dialogue and debate and fit into ongoing consultations as Jan as you said. So moving on quickly to the next slide. We respond to the current emphasis on education innovation, increasing smooth program level collaboration and connectedness internationally and ambitious mobility targets that we're going to see following from the inside paper that Jan just introduced and where we identified six key areas which we have coming up on the screen where we actually see the need to articulate the value added of international collaboration, invest in sustainable pedagogic innovation and to identify the best way to build or enhance systems that provide agility and are based on trust to achieve the vision of the European University of the future. So back to the overview of what this paper is doing. We're looking into the triptych of transnational collaboration, innovation, and policy implications drawing on evidence from research and examples of program activities as colleagues will see in the inside paper itself in the very near future. We draw on three data sets and we really work to provide evidence-based recommendations which we are going to discuss today and the paper will summarize five key recommendations which I share at the end of my short contribution and feeds into the consultations that have already been introduced. So why this now? So in order to move forward, we need the legacy of the past, we need to understand the current landscape, the experience of course of Erasmus Plus in the Bologna process provides us with a very strong foundation to build a vision and a strategy and we have tools, we have the aspiration, the language and the frame for European education. We have already tools on the table that the sector has been using to achieve student staff mobility, collaboration in quality assurance and of course invaluable learnings from the challenges we met on the way. So the question that we are probing further is how we can move further and faster in order to be able to achieve the ideals of openness, flexibility, personal choice and scalability of opportunity and of course of quality and inclusion in higher education. The current mobility targets particularly in the context of European alliances are indicative of the vision and of course also promising programming coming, come from the work of those alliances. So what we did in this paper is to map some of the core issues we believe we need and we can address in terms of really enhancing systems and tools for the future. So moving on, what you actually see on this slide draws on the literature and experience of our network. It's a summary of strengths and challenges associated with joint study programs, double joint degrees as products of the process of joint study programs have a long history in our sector have been studied and we all know strengths and limitations from experience in our institutions of course. So there is really nothing new on this slide, nothing that we don't know and we haven't experienced. What is new and different and needs to be new and different to really achieve the potential that we have and the momentum we have right now is the opportunity to raise above and really address the challenge of building on what we do well and what we need to do differently to meet the needs of our students and the potential we have to change. We could spend a lot of time seeing issues on the slide as dichotomies or as issues that would see would be binaries negating each other and so on. This is not the way we're approaching it. It's not an either or these are all positive learnings. This is the springboard of where we need to go. The position we're taking is that there is no one single solution. There is no one single design that provides the answer to all problems opens all doors meets all needs of our students. We need diversity and we need to find ways to support diversity, to continue supporting diversity, to meet the needs of our students as well as our regional and national contexts. We know that the demographic profile of our students is changing. The model of a student who spends three to five years in full-time education is no longer the norm so we need to think and imagine differently for the education of the future. Similarly here we actually see parameters again from the analysis of our data that influence and play a central role in the experience of staff, students and our institution in being able to provide program level connectedness and collaboration in teaching and learning of course has potential for looking into the local relevance of global problems, provide qualitative experience. At the same time we of course know that collaboration at new program level we have all experienced that in joint degrees requires of course alignment of multiple stakeholders, academics, administration, professional services, colleagues, non-academic partners and so on which comes with known and recorded challenges, long incubation time and need of resource to overcome systems and policies but at the same time provides invaluable experience for everybody who can participate, invaluable experience in mapping the boundaries and identifying new ways and really at the way and opens a way for national regulators, international policy bodies and the sector to come together and think how can we actually really rethink and achieve and enhance the factors that would provide us opportunity to scale up all the good things that are being achieved at program level connectedness. So moving on to the next slide, our vision here and what we're actually I'm trying to be very fast our vision is for European universities where students and staff benefit from a portfolio of internationalization experiences which includes beyond the face-to-face type of designs a number of different types of modalities and opportunities and this includes all face-to-face, virtual, multiple mobility options organically integrated into the pedagogic offering that we have and which goes beyond linear schemes where provision is organized on binders of the past which were here or there, online, offline, sort of short or long and so on. So we actually really need diversity of designs and we need to think how on the basis in the current moment where we do have a number of good and promising designs coming to the fore, this can actually be both sustained can be translated nationally and can be also supported internationally. So we need a clear policy design that supports institution and national bodies to enable the academy to move towards a different systems of design and offered teaching and learning alongside the necessary resource of course to embed and implement innovation. This in its turn is the necessary condition for an environment which can mobilize institutions to really be more creative, to really be risk averse. We all talk about the fact that we're in a risk averse sector and that there are a number of reasons that we don't have necessarily time to talk but in a sense we actually really need to think what are those conditions that would enable us to really build on what works and think how we can actually scale up and this the scaling up is really very important I'll come to that in a minute. So mobility in particular what we argue needs to go beyond physical presence or absence and enable students and staff to have choice and that indicates a shift from mobility as a singular individual experience and the state of being to a process by which opportunity for international learning shortened long term is embedded in curricular and co-curricular offering of institutions and which enables regional, national and international connectivity. This approach of course is the very heart of what program level connectedness can and should achieve and in order for this to happen we need a touchable support of diversity designs. So this is very important of course for increasing and providing opportunity to all and we know and we have very strong evidence from Erasmus Plus studies over the years that actually we know that students really benefit from participation but we also know that there are clusters of students in our student population who participate much less than others and therefore get benefit much less from international education experience. The current targets from 20% to 50% mobility within the alliances of course is something that it would be very useful to kind of think how we can translate it how we can implement a process but which would be the necessary conditions to achieve it. What you have on this slide is a summary table again from our data and also from the literature so we've done a lot of work to actually bring together all the sort of knowledge we have to have an overview of distribution of opportunity and we fully support of course the commission's emphasis in diversifying and increasing flexibility of designs for empowering a diverse student probably to engage. European students are often not participating particularly we actually know the challenges and the sort of what and how certain students need to be supported through a number of different systems to benefit from tools we have from Erasmus Mundus and so on but also we know and we see around us the impact of high living costs in Europe, financial support systems which impact self-funded students and that of course plays a very important role in which student groups can participate and also how that can feed into program design and what it actually means for institutions to be able to support the diversity because in all our institutions we have all the example types. The question is how that can actually really work with the current models we have for resourcing and supporting and steering this work. So moving on to the next slide there is a lot that in sense there is a vision and there is a push and there is an aspiration and there is a lot of commitment and buy-in from the sector to really achieve this level of change and we've started thinking through how we can actually make an intervention how we can actually do that and make an intervention for debate and dialogue in our first in the inside paper that we actually published two years ago and what we actually are really connecting now and seeing with the sort of the need to require alignment of an educational model and the tools and recognizing effort and resource in the context of today's conversation is of course a need for financial activity and sustainability of offering which of course directly impacts the shape and size of the offering of international educational collaboration and the type of designs and mobilities that are available to students. So in my last about five minutes I believe I'm keeping an eye on time I'm moving on to our five recommendations and I will try and cover them very briefly so then we can have a discussion. Our first recommendation is that there is no one design or modality that can in and by itself provide the answer to all the complex issues that we're raising here. Internationalization in the form of joint programs is of course simultaneously difficult in terms of administration logistics national regulation as well as truly beneficial for students and institutions as well as the sector in enhancing conditions that enable all types of cooperation. Joint study programs are part of a development process however and this is the focus so focus on the process and the conditions that need to be in place for different products to come to the fore that should feed into an ecosystem of activities facilitating integrated program level cooperation. Current initiatives such as European degree labels are is oriented towards particular products that we've actually know and we need and we need to think how we can scale up and broaden and this is in line with regulatory priorities and the aspiration and the necessary aspiration to facilitate structural collaboration. Other types of collaboration however are equally important and should be actively and continue to be actively and tangibly recognized to be attractive to the variety of universities that make our sector. This opens a space for connecting with also different tools and other tools alternative forms of credit recognition and the diversity of designs and innovation which would connect with the structural sort of the structures for growth that come from the work that is already providing us good results. So both the commission and the sector should continue to promote diversity of approaches collaboration including models that are not necessarily and would not necessarily lead linearly to a degree in the legal sense but will get us there through an ecosystem of opportunity which then means that experimentation and creativity can really continue to grow and provide us important learnings for the future. The therefore they kind of looking towards the European degree we have an opportunity to focus on what we can do that we cannot already do with the tools we have on the table and recognition of greater diversity of collaboration national and local structures for moving promising pilot to the mainstream visibility of pedagogic products are further enhancing visibility of pedagogic products beyond the academy certainly could of course be now priorities alliances can become the conduit for doing things differently particularly in connecting the higher education pedagogic offering to the complexity of the world around us addressing challenges of interdisciplinarity and and and sort of really provide more in the tools that we already have in the toolkit international education based on strong relationship and trust are the only way for partnerships to become more than the sum of their parts and really this is what I believe we're talking about today how we in order to dare to imagine a truly global connected locally relevant education we need to be more than the sum of our parts. So moving to the second point the second recommendation current work in the alliances address the challenge to make all this good work and learning available learning activities available to all institutions and provide connectivity on scale to reach a target of half of our student populations universities are fully supporting the vision but at the same time we need to think whether the tools we have to incentivize application what is actually necessary to be able to get us there blending intensive programs eras most plus of course contribute towards addressing those challenges but we also need to think how we can do more at national level as well as international for long term sustainability and and quality assurance. The this is something that is very important where we connect indicators to actually really take into consideration the current experience in the sector the ambition of 50% mobility target is not where the current existing realities or has been achieved on the sort of overall on the kind of most institutions experience so in order to have translatable and implementable pathways for the sector it trajectory towards inclusive forms of mobility international learning creating those synergies is of course necessary and the only way to learn from each other and to think how we can support and grow all this good work which gets us to the third recommendation which also connects with resource and recognition the actual academic goodwill and academic attitude to internationalization is paramount for the success of any higher education activity we know that we've seen through the Bologna process the importance of aligning what is the so-called bottom up and top down so on the on this we need to continue doing work so that our policy tools and new frameworks built on existing good practice and and and also bring real value added for institutions as well as for academics cutting red tape around existing quality assurance frameworks and working closely with member states states is obviously very important in terms of both landscaping where we have remaining barriers and how we can enhance all types of collaborations and at the same time recognizing different types of mobility will also bring more innovation in curriculum development and also enable the sector really to think how we could diversify program designs and how we can actually really map all the different needs across our disciplines and across our sort of the very diverse student population that we have in our institutions so moving on to the to to to going a little bit more into that the universities need to be supported to continue investing and also really rethinking how we can actually balance the short and the long-term growth because what we really need is to move and to think how we can actually move where we have promise move this from pilot to mainstream without falling back to the barriers these resilient barriers that have been with us for a long time so the current policy framework provides ambition and language and tools towards innovation and change it is clear that we need more diverse multi-level multifactorial support and that involves immediate mechanisms for increasing funding for universities to actually really work with national and international bodies for taking a role in digital infrastructure and data analytics but also to think more and really enhance the very good work that is currently happening on rethinking about academic careers and bring together recognition of research with recognition of teaching and learning and then the sort of moving to that we actually really need to think what is and how the sector can have the means to carry out internationalization and all the stakeholders from the commission and national regulators to collaborate in the development of regulatory frameworks and tools for individual institutions as well as for the alliance to be able to orient towards diversity of design and of course the necessary funding needs to be reflected in the priorities of the national funding of member states so to conclude with our final recommendation of course we also that's very important to recognize and that universities are not a homogenous category they play a unique role in very diverse regional national and international ecosystems and accordingly designs for global education need exactly to cover and be sensitive to the diversity in the sector and the needs of our students and societies so universities need to embrace the changing landscape as they do and also to be supported in continuing leading the ways out and providing pathways for global education which of course moves and addresses the challenge of how to actually bring separate sets of activities and programs which all have brought so much but at the same time all have taught us so much about the challenge of connecting of really embedding and bringing global connectedness in the university's core business which is teaching research and innovation so universities should work and should be supported to work more with national regulators European Commission in identifying ways to steer and incentivize transnational collaboration particularly in priority areas so that all this value that came also from grassroots initiatives and institutional and international priorities to come together and be aligned so that they can be supportive to grow so including in closing we actually see that the participation of the sector and all the sort of the good work and the conversation indicates the current dynamic of the moment the buy-in we need and we have an opportunity to build on the momentum we have an opportunity to articulate and really translate nationally and locally the value of transnational collaboration and the sort of what you see here is from our first paper where we really put emphasis on thinking and articulating what types of collaboration adds value in which circumstance and the tools to really continue supporting the diversity that we actually need and for that member states the European Commission senior university leadership need to do change themselves and enable the sector to continue leading the way we hope this paper contributes to current work and the joint effort for building a sustainable approach to transcending borders and boundaries in collaboration and mobility and to contribute towards the use of our collective power to truly reimagine and implement future-proof pedagogic innovation and a model for the future of research-led innovation in our offering thank you very much. Thank you so much Joe and maybe just to to pick up the last point that you made about the importance of this dialogue this very close dialogue with between universities and policymakers this is of course really the substance of of what we're doing today and that's why I'm particularly pleased of course the Vanessa DBA sent off from the new European Commission is also here who has been in this dialogue with us really from the very beginning of the European University's initiative but of course also from much earlier than that and so I particularly mortified Vanessa that I forgot to introduce at the beginning so I do apologize that but maybe before we hear from other members of the panel I would like to invite Karin because Karin because Joe you've presented a very high level the key points that you've we've been working on that we would like to discuss but I think we're really good now to hear from Karin maybe about maybe to flesh out in a bit more in-depth some of these as you've been talking about around around the diversity of approach that we need to bring to this and maybe questions around scalability and thinking maybe new ways about what mobility means and how it can be approached from the Civil Alliance and the University of Stubbing involved in Karin. Yeah thank you very much Jan thank you very much Joe for this brilliant introduction and this brilliant summary of an extremely complex paper that really fleshes out the entire landscape and that charts the territory in its entirety and and reflects upon it so as always who did a wonderful job and I'm very grateful also to Jan for having put the group together initially and we have a lot of fun working together and we are very very glad for the leadership of Joe who is our main author and our main designer and make sure that we deliver what we need for her to draw things together so it's really a wonderful opportunity of collaboration and we are now very very happy to share these ideas with a wider audience and very much looking forward to your input so we are not a closed shop and I will in a short while focus on one of the smaller units that we can also discuss when we talk about mobility and I will do so in the context of the European University Alliance that Tubingen is a member of which is called SIVIS but before doing so I need maybe to voice a number of caveats by stressing that what I will be talking about is but one example and it does definitely not imply that this is the only one or even a privileged mode as Joe has very you know very rightly underlined strongly is we need a multiplicity of approaches we need a wide portfolio in order to address the range of tasks and needs and intentions that we have with our European education offers and the other caveat I'd like to voice is the example that I will be discussing is a little bit out of the ordinary because the responsible unit here is not the faculty which usually is responsible for running programs but it is a sub-unit of the central administration concerned with teaching and learning but nevertheless these offerings are subject to the same academic standards that are applied across the university and the offerings are also delivered by our academics and lastly highlighting these offers by no means let me stress that again strongly implies to value other activities less or to deny that developing full-fledged degree programs should be devalued let me briefly begin by setting the context the University of Tubingen is pretty much in the middle of Europe and is part of a rich ecosystem of research institutions especially in the natural sciences because of its physical environment there is a difference between faculties as we say down in the valley or up on the hill and the chart that you see here includes both parts of the campus but the the the bulk of the research collaboration is up on the hill because as you see a lot is related to medicine and the natural sciences more than a decade ago we had a huge internal reform and merged some faculties into larger entities so that now we have six faculties and one center operating like a faculty the Center for Islamic Theology as I already said the main units of running programs and granting degrees are of course the faculties and you might be surprised to see the sheer number of the programs that Tubingen is running but don't be misled the number 345 does includes a combination programs that means sometimes we have to accredit parts of study programs those parts that do have their own legal documents so to speak so we count a lot into this as you see we have 52 part 52 international study tracks of which 36 are English speaking and seven of which have an inbuilt obligatory mobility we have at this point nine will soon have more than that double or multiple degree programs the following slide provides a range provides examples of the range of offerings so as you see we can count this a little bit differently if we only count the full programs we have around 200 degree programs in 130 different subjects our innovative areas are for example in machine learning in medical technology and molecular medicine in geoecology in nanoscience media informatics sport management and islamic theology of the international study tracks just to mention a few of them advanced quantum physics computational linguistics cultures of the global south and international economics would be examples and just to show you the flyer of one of the programs this is cultures of the global south so this would be an international study program outside of Europe Tubingen now let me move to the next slide as you see from the number of students we are kind of on the upper level of a middle medium sized universities we have around about 28,500 students of which the majority are female and international students we try definitely to increase the number of our international students and in the winter semester of last year we had 4,165 international students now moving on to the collaborations we have the international collaborations this is I think pretty typical for all guild member universities it's a large portfolio in all continents of the world but of course with a very very strong emphasis on Europe and this is what we will now talk about when I introduce SIVIS SIVIS the SIVIS alliance includes 11 universities two of which are non-European union member states the University of Glasgow and the University of Lausanne together we are a very large alliance as far as student numbers is concerned namely we have round about four and a half no let's see we have round about 500,000 students in the entire alliance so that is a large number of students and a large number of staff the reason for this is that many universities in the alliance are capital universities universities in large European capitals with high numbers of students and staff academics and researchers and so this explains also the high number of students the alliance tries to work systems wide which is the reason why it has a very complex structure so we do not focus on one particular area but on a whole range so I think we could move to the next slide one of the key features of SIVIS is that it is organized in what we call hubs and these hubs try to address crucial questions of global concern such as climate and environment society culture heritage digital and technological transformation cities territories and mobilities and as you can see each hub is led by two SIVIS partner universities but and the University of Ex-Massé is the project leader it is responsible for running the entire project now talking about student mobility and talking about developing full-fledged programs I am happy to report at this point although we are not quite there yet but it's underway I'm happy to report on the masters in the making in hub one climate environment and energy this will be a transdisciplinary and international masters program involving a number of SIVIS partners it's very complex it will include the natural sciences and the humanities and social sciences and at this point it is designed to serve around 50 to 60 students as a SIVIS master it would inevitably involve student mobility and now as Joe has written in the paper these programs with integrated mobilities are designed for a relatively small number of students if we would realize mobility for students in the across the entire SIVIS alliance we and if the aim would be 50 percent to reach 50 percent of student mobility we are talking about how can we reach a quarter million students and it is clear from the sheer number that we have to think of other offerings as well so we need to think of how to develop offerings with a lower threshold but whatever formats we choose they need to fit with our priorities and opportunities so I'm sure that you will recognize from your own alliances a number of features that cut across like the international experience things like like a passport or a badge I think it's also a common feature to have summer or winter schools to have flexible mobility of course also to strongly emphasize the student voice in the student council but also serve academics in integrating them and making sure that they have the infrastructure they need in order to develop for example their common programs so against this background I will now introduce to you yeah this is another slide that shows you the setting the various features that have been set up by SIVIS in order to make it really work across the entire system now SIVIS has a number of versatile elements that are relevant for providing opportunities for students and staff so that collaboration is possible and now let me zoom in to what we have designated as micro-programs overall let me state that the University of Bucharest is our motor here when it comes to pushing innovation and laying the infrastructure around work very important and this is just one name I would really like to mention is my dear colleague Ramit Zayuku who some of you know who is extremely active and very passionate in pushing these developments forward so what we do for example is we try to develop a common educational framework and this starts very basic this starts with charting the different levels or different scales of offers so it will start with single learning activities and then it will move on to full-fledged programs the reason why the bubbles are not filled out is that sometimes it's not as simple as it might sound sometimes the distinction between single and multi-structured learning activities are not that easy although one would think it would be now let me introduce you the micro-programs the micro-programs initiated or were initiated one of the nuclei you might say are is the Trübingen transdisciplinary course program and the background of this is that Trübingen very early had decided to allocate 21 credit points for transdisciplinary course offerings and career-oriented services the transdisciplinary course program currently has around 150 offerings and has as its central idea to encourage students to assume responsibility in and for society and these offerings address key areas of concern and are often designed as building blocks that eventually lead to a certificate such as our studio ecologico for example when it comes to environmental questions or civic engagement which I will talk about in a second another hallmark of the program is its service learning orientation and one prominent area where these two approaches came together is our global awareness education program and with this background with these features in place it was almost natural for us to use the format and redesign or redesignate it as micro-programs open for civis the key players in this regard besides the university of Trübingen are the universities in Bucharest, Madrid and Essence and given the focus of civis on relations of the university to civil society and given the various activities in this area in our different universities we designed the micro-program on civic engagement which the colleagues in the meantime have developed as a blended intensive program short a bit. Another example is a course that I will talk about shortly so this is basically a slide that talks about what civis what the micro-program civic engagement is about what the aims are and what you will get out of the program if you are a student so it has a number of flexible features such as you can design your own curriculum by choosing from a number of courses you can move forward at your own pace and you will interact with academics and students across Europe. So the next slide basically highlights what this is about to a knowledge interaction civic engagement has a strong component of where civil society comes into play and where the university and civil society interact. I think I have to move a little bit quicker forward I'm sure that you the webinar is recorded and so you can have a look at the slides at your own pace later on there's a number of just you know administrative things you know what is it what are the various units doing that are components of the program then of course in the next slide you get an idea of how are the credit points allocated to the different units and finally you will see the the program that would be the next slide just to give you an idea so that is at one glance you see who is involved what are the ideas of the course what is the literature that is that it's based on and then what do you have to do what are the teaching methods and the study methods and then of course finally what's kind of cut off at this slide is you know what is the the oh yeah there it is what is the component where you actually are physically mobile in this case it is a physical mobility part in Romania. Another example the final one is coming on the next slide I think oh no we left that out that's fine now this sounds all well and fine because they have a number of advantages these designs are agile they are low barrier they are transdisciplinary international they are flexible in the case of the bibs you also have a physical component of course they cannot provide the degree of immersion that a longer stay can offer of course you know the international experience is somewhat limited especially you know the face-to-face and physical part of it but even though these units are agile and flexible and everything we still have a number of problems associated with them a number of obstacles so one is how do we efficiently inspire students and keep track of them and while they attend the program they should be part of the academic community where the program is offered so they even if it's only virtual they should have access to other resources as well if instructors have to register the students by hand then we easily get to a limit and cause a lot of frustration so we need to have administrative issues in place now we can do that for the individual course but then how do we feed that into the larger system another issue is embedding ideally the offering is not a one-off activity but should be an integral part of the student's journey now that also needs to be addressed and finally and I did not mention that on the slide how do you integrate these very small units efficiently into the quality assurance system as you have seen we have 200 study programs that we need to administer where we need regular quality assurance as a systems accredited university now the micro programs have to be fed into that as well at this point the volume is manageable but if we expand then it will become an issue so I'm sorry for overstepping my timeline so much thank you very much for your attention and looking forward to your questions and discussion points thank you very much Karen and Karen you've you've given us a wonderful homing in on some of the key issues that Joe mentioned because they were all really around the questions of nuance and diversity in terms of what we do in terms of in in terms of our effort to really now focus on the or really make the the opportunities around international education work but work in such a way that they're also around innovative policy pedagogy and the leadership that we as universities must assume they all really address this issue of scalability or at least raise the question about how we make things scalable and embed them as you noted it there is of course then the question that we have to raise to the university sector but also to national and european policy makers about the added value of how this can be recognized at a european level and of course there are fundamental issues also really about the incentivization that are behind what you're talking about you know what the sheer effort that it takes to do this and and and how we ensure that these things again are embedded in in what universities do so i really would now like to invite our other panelists to to switch on the cameras and we and raffaela you you're the first to switch on your cameras so you see your first person like i get to ask which is great but you are deeply involved deeply involved from the university bologna in your in unoropa and in terms of its its its pedagogical drives we've had a lot i think about unoropa's joint degree um recently but um yeah just if i if i maybe can invite you to have some reflections for five minutes or so about what you've heard um from carin or joe from your own experience in unoropa yes thank you very much really glad to be here so my view is both from bologna and more widely from unoropa uh just like to remark a couple of things with respect to the really important relevant and strong point we are experiencing these days and at the same time erase a couple of challenges so uh with respect to what we really think is an added value right now we but uh we are pretty much engaged right now also in the call on the european label for joint degrees we're working a lot on that and we believe that's really gonna make a difference eventually in so far as it is something which is planned as uh systematic something which is going to last in the long run something which is going to have some added value also with respect to the previous experiences uh within the erasmus program so at least three things i think are very relevant in this respect we're not only working at the master level but we are really kind of planning and already experiencing joint european degrees at dba level the our bias is our first experiment here and also we're working on joint phd programs so this is going to be something kind of in a wider perspective with respect to also the only the master level then there is something i'm really keen on stressing we tend to focus and it's perfectly clear and and and useful we tend to focus on tools on mobility on on on ways to do things but i also think that the contents of our degree programs are something which is very relevant making so many different universities work together also means that we need to converge on what our cultural priorities are at the end of the day uh topics such as sustainability resources health technologies artificial intelligence climate change and so on and so forth are identified by a very large number of different universities as the urgent core topics to focus on so it's not only a matter to converge in terms of methodologies mobility schemes educational format but also with respect to what we think are the most urgent important disciplinary interdisciplinary multidisciplinary topics we want to address and then last but not least we are really making very huge efforts with respect to the sharing of infrastructures technologies softwares it tools in order to track careers track mobility exchanges and also find ways to identify from a digital point of view our our students while they come and go across our our different institutions in the alliance and that's a big effort which requires a lot of technical technical work with respect to the administrative side of it two experiences great added value in so far as what we are doing is fostering interactions and very very interesting interactions with our own ministries and accreditation agencies and the added value right now is that this is happening across alliances so for instance my experience in italy different italian universities involved in different european alliances are actually finding themselves as uh alliance in order to interact with ministries and and accreditation agencies more effectively and not only that we're trying to work across the alliance in order to be as universities more proactive in making our different accreditation agencies talk to each other so i think we are much of our reflection these days is also devotee to what the proactive role of european alliance can be in the political context of our european countries so this is very well well kind of nice and positive let me use my three more minutes to um kind of phrase something with which might be uh maybe more in the challenge inside of it um with respect to the topics i think that we need not underestimate the importance that what we are doing has also been seen from outside europe uh each and all our universities have a number of international delegations coming and going many interactions i kind of was stressing that with asia africa north america south america and my experience is that um in non-eu partners are paying interesting attention on on what we are doing so we're not only discussing transnational collaboration in education formats within europe we also kind of proposing a european approach to uh education we're saying that integrated european education is the way to go we are presenting a few core topics as the important one uh and we're also saying and this i think was very well stressed in the previous remarks we're also saying something about the role that universities have to do in the social context so we were talking about city engagement social engagement and i think this is not to be taken for granted so the the the way to european integrated education is also i think a way to promote um european values through uh academic academic work on the other hand uh deciding that some contents are those to be tackled in a priority way also need to be um i could have put it to be to be treated very cautiously in so far as universities especially huge universities have a number of diverse minor subjects and minor uh uh sub-sub-sub fields treated into into that so we really need to make sure that there's no competition between the big picture we are shaping and all the diversity that our universities have and that we should not lose um and and then the other the only challenge i see is that uh with respect to inclusivity which i can see at least into different ways on the one hand if we want to motivate our academic staff and our administrative staff in pursue this long lasting and long long long run effort we need to make incentives which might be financial incentives or different ways of promote and and motivate them in the long run we need to make our degree programs inclusive in the sense that european degrees joint degrees do not have to be for a very small fraction of our students um and then i think the only not not the only but a risk that i really think we need to focus on is given how much committed and how much strongly we were living what we are doing we need not around the risk of having in the long run first class and second class degree so first class and second class students and this is for now i hope i sticked to my five minutes thanks a lot that's wonderful rafael you brought in so many points that the deep in the discussion but also add implicit issues that maybe weren't so explicit before so including for instance the the real need for the national level to be part of the discussion the way in which european universities can drive that discussion that diversity has to of course really be at the national level and when it then therefore comes to incentivization at the institution level there is of course also really a question about that national embedding in how european universities work and how that's decentralized incentivized and allowed and enabled by national regulators and frameworks and funding mechanisms indeed um but but i also really love your point about how this is how in a sense we are really at a european pedagogical moment in a sense um that is there is also what's worldwide and i think this is again something um that is an ambition but also i think probably also it's beginning few states in the fact so so so i think it's really worth reflecting on that a bit more but anglis you you are here from uh also with with you i mean hugely experienced of course on behalf of university of gend but also very involved in the in light university lines so maybe um what would you initial five five minutes reflections beyond the issues we've discussed thank you young thank you very much for inviting me i'm happy to contribute to the dialogue um of course i will speak more from a perspective as a practitioner with 15 years of experience in erasmus moons and also in more recent years with experience in our in light lines but i will speak from from a gend university perspective and i also would like to point out that we are involved heavily involved in one of the pilot projects on the joint european degree label which is the ed lab project and i would be very happy to be already in the position to tell more from that perspective but of course all the work there is still very much under development and i will also reframe from from dating positions from that perspective but in general what i feel that this important here to point out is that i'm observing an attention currently in our sector between on the one hand a very widespread volunteerism to push things forward a wish to keep or regain our momentum following earlier leaps forward when we think about all the all the steps that were made in the framework of the balonia process there's also a wish current wish a strong wish to be more inclusive and provide international intercultural skills to larger numbers of students than we have probably reached out to in the past in our case of gend university we actually want to provide such skills to all our students and then of course we cannot provide them all through physical mobility we will also need to look into alternative ways and that finally there's also wish to build on both proven models and i said also novel approaches to bringing these skills to our students now on the other hand there is the reality that the formalization of intense cooperation remains a very very complex endeavor attempts at mainstreaming our cooperation in the framework of strategic cooperation such as the alliances brings both opportunities but also challenges there's also the reality that much if not all of our cooperation and i'm of course working for a central administration and university but all of all of our corporate has to be rooted in buying of our academics if we do not have them on board we will not get very far so that is still a starting point that we should always take into account and there's finally sadly also the fact that the development of joint initiatives takes time takes capacity takes creativity and ultimately also resources to overcome the hurdles that we are still being confronted with at administrative level at regulatory level failure is still sometimes a possibility now what i also noticed in some of the interventions of today already that there is a bit of a concern that we may be in our sector focusing too much in policy on joint programs or maybe joint degrees as a result of these joint programs but i'm not so much concerned with that i believe that there is still a need for such a focus at policy side because if the regulatory obstacles for this type of of cooperation which is very integrated can be removed i am also convinced that other types of cooperation will be further facilitated also from a regulatory point of view neutral trust is very very important and neutral trust is very important in setting up joint program but also in the other types of cooperation that are being brought forward then finally next to policy text of course there are policy instruments such as funding programs and there we have to say that the erasmus plus program as it currently is organized not only focuses on joint programs far away from that there is of course support for classic mobility and there is support for novel or not so novel forms of cooperation such as blended intensive programs so we have a portfolio there that is put at our disposal of course we would like to see it even in more flexible ways and with larger support if possible so not all corporations my final point should aim for the sky and we should not always offer full-blown joint programs in particular if we want to reach out to larger numbers of students outcome should become should come before four but where a joint program is due then please let it also be facilitated as these can still be very rewarding endeavors for both the academics and the students and if they can lead to a joint degree this cooperation also becomes very visible so it's still very nice objective to set out for ourselves as a sector thank you. Andres this is to my mind and please correct me if I misrepresent what you've just said but what I'm hearing is is is a kind of central I'll focus on a central question that that is that I've Joan I have discussed I think outside this virtual room so many times which is really the tension between the innovative sort of experimental nature of what we've been encouraged to do in the European universities and in the moment that we have in terms of this post-COVID world and the extent to which as soon as we start to mainstream it and regularize it we kind of always take the desert temptation or the risk of taking the fun out of things because you're trying to structure things and you need to make things fit and I think this is a fundamental tension I think that in a sense I think also very much behind this paper so I think it's thank you very much for for bringing that out. Vanessa can I maybe just come to you to really just reflect at this point just on many of the rich contributions that you've heard that really relate so centrally on some of the issues that concern you but of course it's always so fascinating at least for me to hear about the practice and kind of how this is really enriched by the problems on the ground and some of the real tensions and challenges. Yes thanks a lot we are very much looking forward to the full report that comes very timely in the context of the learning mobility framework that the commission planned to present at the end this year but also as you said in the context of the mutual review of Erasmus Plus and as well as you know ongoing work towards the joint European degree and the progress and the support of the relevant of the European University so we very much welcome it so congrats to all the the colleagues that are working on it and and it comes very timely in the context also of achieving a European education because here the key from down to objective of achieving a European education is to ensure mobility for all across the how to achieve this mobility for all we need to reach out to a more diverse range of learners that's all panellists and the one way is to diversify the mobility formats and this is what we are trying to do to encourage through the new Erasmus Plus program with new additional mobility formats that are complementary to the the classical Erasmus mobility with virtual mobility, blending mobility, the blending intensive programs. Now to have an and I think Joe presented it in his presentation to have as much as impact as possible of these different formats as the other ones it needs to be very well designed it needs to be very well monitored and we see that quite a number of high education institutions are still struggling with it it's good that it's an instrument it's a possibility and the possibility that is there but how to design it and how to organize it in a way that has the impact that we are looking for I think there is still some room for reflection there collectively and that we need to have in the context of the mutual review of Erasmus Plus so that we can certainly there is a need to share good practices to accompany those high education institutions that are maybe more struggling than others without to increase the further take up. Then of course the ideal way to make sure that a large majority of students can benefit from this diversity of midi formats is to embed it into the curriculum and to embed into the curriculum this requires quite a number of key individuals that have tried to address in the European strategy for universities that we that we presented last year. One is definitely to review the design the existing programs to embed this different mobility mobility format. It can take the form of joint study and joint programs at young but not necessarily it can take the form of micro programs micro ventures it can take many different formats but of course we need to give incentives and we need to volumize all this work from mechanics. That is why we have announced in the European strategy for industries that we are working towards a possibly a cultural condition on academic careers to volumize all the work from techniques in developing these new innovative pedagogies these new midi formats to to volumize recognize it in their career in their career development so that it is volumized as much as other very important activities like research activities. Then it requires funding and clearly Erasmus plus funding is not enough so much of funding is associated from them too and we see more and more countries using and complimenting Erasmus plus funding and that is something that we discuss with the business states. Then we need to ensure automatic recognition of all these different format of mobility so we've published a report on the February that shows that some progress has been made but that's still a lot of progress remain to be made so that is why we are going to to work towards a European framework for quality assurance and automatic recognition system because we see that there is a lack of steel despite almost 25 years of burning process there is still lack of trust between the different quality different systems that are hampering this automatic recognition as defined in the in the council recommendation and then last but not least a joint study program is one way as well to to facilitate this this mobility in this deeper transnational corporation so it's sure that if we want more joint study programs it's important to valorize the outcome of this joint study program which is the qualification that is why we have put forward this this objective to work towards a joint European degree it doesn't mean that we want to put the focus only in this we need to keep the overall picture to look at all these different formats of deeper cooperation but as entree said if we manage to overcome to address the constraints obstacles that the universities are facing when developing joint European degree that we have a positive impact on all the rest so but there are still a lot of progress to be made we see and some of the panelists that have presented the challenges when delivering the joint European degree or joint programs that there are some reforms to be made in some member states if we want to bring more queries there are still national laws that hamper the condition of digital education are those that are hampering material realism are those that are hampering facilitating quality assurance and accreditation so we need to bring a lot of alignments but more consistency and more queries between these different systems so we have as a key neighbor adopted a very important council recommendation last year on bidding bridges for effective European high education cooperation now we are one year after this adoption and we have just launched a survey to all the ministries to assess what they have done and we know some member states are really initiating new reforms which is extremely positive and others that are planning new reforms so by December we'll have a great overview on where we stand on the progress made and progress still to be made now quality assurance accreditation is is a very important factor to facilitate it we need we need more future proof and the giant quality and accreditation systems and it was interesting in the context of the Erasmus-Pesky fit project to see that the top challenge that that universities but also quality assurance agencies are facing is quality assurance in the context of transnational cooperation we are in the ballot so that is also why we are aiming at presenting some recommendations possibly next year on that very important aspect so actually we are really really working on this key neighbors that have been addressed in the presentation that I'm sure will be addressing there in the report now of course in in food and food and suggestions in the reports on the necessary recommendations necessary reforms are of course very much what come to fingers into into this work thank you thank you Vanessa and and so a lot still to do but I think you've really outlined some of the the key priorities in terms of and I think there's clear agreement that we need sort of a diversity of approach but we also really kind of really need to work at all levels and that includes very much the joint degree level and and and and what brings all these together it seems to me is is a critical question of trust across institutions but clearly also across national systems and I think that's also come through in some of the other contributions from from different perspectives thank you can I maybe just just turn to Vida in terms of your reflections on what you've heard I mean tons of points to pick up on but but five minutes yes thanks to you thanks a lot and thanks for inviting me here and thanks for the for addressing this issue of international cooperation and mobility in a wider context than is often the case I in the context of quality and education collaboration is central to achieving increased quality education that's that's a very positive starting point I think in research for instance we've seen international cooperation has for a long time had a very high status and been seen as more or less a necessary prerequisite for quality whereas education very often is seen before in a national context and anchored in this truly national context so that's that is very very positive now I joined this panel not with an institutional perspective of course but that of a a national agency the Rasmus plus but also a government directorate and an acronym of organization that should be noted and in the 20 years that I've worked on international more than 20 years now on international cooperation in higher education there is a notable change I think in the past few years engagement in national partnerships were until recently something that in individual academics is engaged in but very little institutional support and likewise student ability was and I guess to a certain extent is still seen largely as an administrative undertaking not really academically essential at any level even going a lot more than maybe for around five years back in time we often met with directors and deans from our universities who were not even aware that erasmus plus offered more opportunities than student mobility and basically very few thoughts on how to use the program in its full scope and that has changed I must say and I think the game changer in that respect is the european university initiative and this is not a webinar about the initiative although it's central I think it's fair to say that I'm not sure this webinar would have taken place with its current focus without the existence of the european university alliances and by designing initiative which encompasses and furthers institution-wide cooperation I think the commission has created a scheme which enables universities to view their international cooperation in more holistic perspective and connected to national priorities and institutional priorities or regional priorities also without its relevance they offer the opportunity to make mobility partnerships and joint study programs all come together within the framework that can then gain relevance for all aspects of institutions educational activities and goals regionally national internationally as mentioned I think we've seen a few good examples of that today and there are of course many more out there and the role that the europe without the european university initiative is given in the for instance in the communication on the european education area and in the european strategy for universities further contribute to its very central position right now and by the way just the very fact that we have a european strategy of universities which focuses more on education than it does on research I think is in itself a milestone however there's no denying the fact that the european university initiative is limited the sense that even when it's uh by 2025 will encompass 60 alliances perhaps up to 15 percent of europe's higher education institutions which is a very limited number of course now of course this means that practice good practice and good results need to be disseminated to be spread but it also means I think that we should not let this initiative completely overshadow other good initiatives instruments and ways of cooperation that take place either on the fringes of the alliances or outside of it and let me admit that no matter how happy I am with this initiative I'm also concerned that there is too much emphasis given to the alliances in the european dialogue but also in maybe in the funding in the in the program itself uh if european higher education is to truly transform uh the alliances cannot be the only answer as I think there is a tendency to in the european strategy for universities uh we need to recognize that educational excellence and quality can be achieved also through other and smaller initiatives like cooperation partnerships the Erasmus Mundus program which celebrates his 20th year next year next year and even within the alliances of course you need a broader scope on it on your activities than just the alliance itself uh an alliance typically consists of around 10 partners and it goes without saying that participating universities international engagements have to go far beyond that just an example from Norway our largest university participates in an alliance with 10 members and in 2022 which is a year still marked by the pandemic to a certain extent it sent out just under a thousand Erasmus students to around 150 european partners it received 2000 students from around 350 european partners and it goes without saying I think you cannot move all these mobility into that alliance of 10 partners and nor is it desirable particularly not from a student perspective and I'm not suggesting that anyone thinks seriously would suggest that you should and limited that way but the numbers serve to illustrate that there are certain limits to the extent to which the alliances can cater for all the needs of an institution and with the mobility cost that we have in Norway at least we need to make use of all available opportunities that are there and I think if you go back to 1987 the starter Erasmus plus with 3000 students in six countries participating european cooperation in higher education has come a very long way since then the bologna process that provided a structural cooperation and a multitude of initiatives and opportunities have emerged and evolved that so today I think we have an ecosystem for educational cooperation which is probably unrivaled in the world the current structure of the Erasmus plus offers ample opportunities that complement each other and they should be put to good use in their full scope uh as Jo and Guru said in your presentation we need diversity and I can definitely subscribe to that and I think that we need to ensure that this ecosystem continues to develop in line with evolving and changing needs in the future as well so I'll leave it at that thank you for now thank you very much Vida and a real um a plea to um both of course recognize what has been achieved but also to really think through the the wider dimension beyond the European universities of what we've already achieved in terms of how we can really scale up mobility and and kind of what is needed um so again it it it raises uh raises the game even even more uh Florian um last uh last but not least in this panel in this first round of the panel do you have any any reflections from your perspective on what you've heard on some of the key arguments yes uh thank you Jan um I would like to start to to make a comment about the 50 percent ability aim I remember when I started in the ministry in 2005 uh the actual commissioner Han and former minister of science and research actually he for Austria he gave the aim of 50 percent mobility up until 2015 uh we did not reach it but we started having a discussion about mobility uh and it started having we started having a bigger discussion about though we talk about physical mobility uh or also about virtual mobility what is mobility for us and uh this was a was a good point um and we are still working on that I mean until now Austria hasn't reached yet the 50 percent mobility but uh I think it helps Austrian universities in the current discussion about achieving this 50 percent mobility of course in that time we did not have all the possibilities or maybe we had them but we did not use them uh all the possibilities that we have nowadays um I also wanted to comment on on the relationship between high education and ministries as it was one of the colleagues who mentioned that the Italian query and I agree um I mean we as an Austrian ministry uh when we started the European university initiative we also started a specific working group bringing together university with relevant people from the ministry because we as a ministry we said well here you have a new tool that you can play with up to you to to build something up to um we don't see any problem for you but this was not the case actually yes also we had uh challenges and we still do have challenges and uh one important point that I also want to make is we talk about uh high education institutions and most of the time at least myself I'm thinking about universities but it's not the case I mean the high education uh institutions are much more wild even in Austria we talk about universities of applied sciences we talk about university colleges and so on so um I think that it is very important when we talk about all the these challenges and these topics to have in mind also other types of universities and in Austria exactly for example a university of applied sciences have a different financing system making it more difficult for them to be part of a European university alliance I want also to make one another point and this is about recognition I just uh so um I slash Austria we just organized together with the European Commission uh peer learning activity this week Monday Tuesday uh why because Austria had a very specific interest about recognition of transnational education and this is a topic that is not um that we should discuss further actually um because um there are much more problems and even I learned that there are much more issues to be tackled for recognition agencies and the Austrian Quality Assurance Agency they reported for example that it's becoming more and more challenging recognition why but also because the education landscape is more fragmented I mean if you look back 30 years ago you have your classical system of bachelor master phd but now we are talking about my potential we are talking about non-former informal and formal recognition uh and many other possibilities that we have nowadays and that we didn't have some years ago and this is also an increasing challenge for the agencies when it comes to recognition and actually that brings me also that I would like to respond to one of the questions that I saw in in the chats about the digital credential initiative this is for me one initiative part of this whole issue about digitalization and yes of course digitalization is coming why simply because we don't have the people if you look on the media we don't have to labor market people but I'm also convinced that also at university it will be and will become an increasing problem because all these agencies and so on that will also at a certain point look after new people and new professor students etc so how can we tackle all this well these initiatives and and these automatic recognition these are all initiatives in order to reduce uh to to make further automatization because we don't have the people but on the other hand what I also would like to underline is at the end of the chain there is always a human being so it is important first to to have a common understanding about digitalization digital credential initiatives and so on and so on then of course we have to implement it but we should never forget that at the end of the at the beginning and at the end of the chain there's always a human being and for me one maybe one last word that I would also say is of course it was also mentioned the cooperation Europe with the rest of the world yes of course this is another very important topic and here again we we see that while people are looking on us but we also should look on on them what they are doing and we need to reinforce the cooperation of course um like human beings of course Africa has other challenges than South America or North America and this is challenging us also and also us as a ministry last but not least I also would like to support the comment from uh of Peter Pedersen about the European University Alliance of and and what you said about not overshadowing other initiatives I fully agree with that thank you very much great thank you very much Florian and thank you for for a whole range of perspectives very very important to have your sense also to to really think through how how how how from a national perspective you're related from a ministry's perspective you're relating both to these conversations and reflections with the European community on one hand but also with your own universities on the other but also again very important I think to to have this a final pointer towards the rest of the world and the bilateral way in which we need to look to to each other and and the diversity that also brings to our perspectives Joe can I just invite I mean far too many points to comment on but maybe if you can we had to pick out one or two things to maybe respond to before we open up absolutely but thank you really a diversity of points as a sort of the complexity of the issues we're discussing I'll just pick on three in the interest of time that I sort of been reflecting on definitely we are achieving a lot and we have a number of tools already there and and and I really I think Vanessa gave us such an overview of where we are and how in the distance we've traveled we should not lose from the focus and at the same time what I hear is how the work we do what what we have a sort of we converge on the need to look and focus on both the process so the conditions that need to be in place in order to lead to products as well as the support that is needed by the products and how those products need to feed back and and we need to the learning sexual feedback to facilitate the process and probably a need to disentangle when we talk about the real value added of what we do because we tend to homogenize the issue and to not separate process and and product and how we can actually really capitalize on that and this gets me to the second point where we also think in a in a sense in somebody well of course in the interest of brevity in conversation but when we talk about level so undergrad postgraduate toward postgraduate research and so on what we know of course is that again we kind of jump on the product without thinking of what we need in terms of building pathways in the cycles the degree cycles and to really think of the life cycle the student experience and how we can actually build all these learning activities because as Andres said we want all our students to actually achieve it and at the same time we don't want all our students to participate into one learn it's impossible and it's not right anyway so the question is and we know that particularly if we want and we all want and that's I'm absolutely certain that we really want to increase participation by groups that are historically and and underrepresented in all the initiatives and activities and scale up opportunity we know that in order to do this it's not a matter of putting a particular type of resource on the table because we know that our students all our students have more complex lives and particularly of students who come from a particular background so we need more experience and more often which gets us on to this very difficult balance of needing to scale the micro with a macro and and and that in sort of closing on that that gets me to the point the very important point that Vida raised and Florian also picked up that that that that that we of course the vision is that all university to participate in all the forms of European collaboration we're discussing today but this is also far from the sector's daily experience and not homogenizing the university as one of our recommendation is also not homogenizing the diversity we have so we already have another question on the table which is risks to create silos and of course our lines themselves need to not become new silos which is also what Raphael alluded to earlier on so we have processes by which partners are selected but also processes by which the deepening of partnerships and the structure of viability of products need to create a condition for a sector-wide paradigm shift if we are to achieve the vision so then that gets us up to how we can actually interface between the various different initiatives which makes of course a complex issue even more complex issue but we also have the tools because of course the work that comes from all these pathways can and should feed into mechanisms I mean Erasmus plus is one that is actually really giving us so much to actually really think of how we can disseminate and and and sort of sort of benefit sector-wide I mean I believe very very much very strongly in sort of taking an ecosystem approach and understanding that all our ecosystems are very complex and how they interact in terms of their local regional national and international and within that this is the work we do in Utopia to actually really think how we can create sustainable learning communities that actually cut across and this is this is very much speaks to the principles that we're trying to achieve so I'm going to basically stop with those three but to me these are kind of where I see we by kind of having the opportunity to have spaces like today to really disentangle and and sort of think what our priorities and how we could actually engage the multiple different stakeholders in a prioritization is really beneficial as we're moving forward and I'm going to stop here thank you thank you thank you Joe I and I've I've got some questions from the audience now so we've been very patient and one the first question is really around the question the question about the the mobility targets which are very ambitious and they are 50 percent for European University alliances they're 50 percent in the case of Norway and some countries so and and the question around the green agenda how do we how do we bring that together and I don't know who would like to answer on that one Rafaela Karin from your experience in the networks how well how have you discussed this issue if I may I don't really have great question answers on this it's definitely something we are discussing we are trying to bring together mobility issues with respect to inclusivity issues and we are discussing at least inside the both the alliance and the University of Boronia whether at least some digital tools at least some technologies at least some short mobility and both the blended teaching blended education can help into that respect let me also add another issue so we sort of we try to tackle it as a sort of triangle so mobility which we really believe is part and parcel of the experience of the international experience so we don't want to do without actual in-presence mobility because it's all the cultural experience it's not just learning something in a different university inclusivity so we want more people to be to be able to do that and to have some international experience but there's also sustainability so we know that many universities across Europe are questioning whether to move around is actually something which we should reflect upon in terms of the impact on the environment and the use of resources both in terms of financial resources and the impact on the environment so I think that I don't really have a very good answer at the time right right now but let me just stress that it's a kind of triangle that we need to find a way to deal with and if I if I may add something which is not really on mobility but also on that picking on what Joe was just saying I also think that we need to make what we are doing much more easily to be recognized from outside institutional and academic system so I think that private stakeholders need to understand much better what we are doing local institutions local entities and everything heavy and private stakeholders starting to do with the job market because that's going to make so much easier for us to pursue a number of so free innovative education programs and it's going to be a great added value for our students if they already know that the job market is going to understand what they are doing and the tools they are kind of providing to the private sectors one once they get out there right I have other questions so Vida up to you and Joe you'll come a bit later sorry Vida Vida thanks yeah thanks no it is of course a kind of disconcerting question I mean we want to boost mobility and at the same time we know that traveling is not necessarily what this what this earth needs more of I think at the same time when we need to of course we should we should give opportunities for green travel which is what this does and we should encourage green travel and of course on the continent that can be achieved over many distances perhaps a little bit more challenging if you live on the outskirts of Europe as we do but still it's possible so that's certainly being being encouraged and I think at the same time we need to have more than one thought in in our minds we we're not going to completely stop traveling in this world and I think that we need international education we need international understanding we need a global mindset that is also part of sustainability and sustainability goals and I think as a previous minister said that a learning mobility period abroad is perhaps the most important trip you're ever going to make as an individual and that is the one you should definitely make sure that you do not sacrifice so it's it's it's not just a question of it's not just a question of people go I mean how often do we go where do we go but it's also why are we actually traveling why are we only moving I think learning mobility has so many other values that it's something that should still be encouraged but we need to keep in mind what the carbon footprint is and we need to work to minimize that as much as possible but it still has an important value and we shouldn't really sacrifice that value thank you that's thank you and Vanessa maybe can I turn to you and and just ask I mean for general reflection on this question but also on some of the initiatives that you are that you're working on like the euro pass and the european digital credentials and how they might might help in this yes well actually to facilitate the mobility it's important to digitalize all the the organization for for this mobility and that is the objective of the european student card initiative we are still in transition because not all high education institutions have joined the system so I understand the frustration of many universities that still have to handle different systems because they will reap the benefits only when all high education institutions will have joined the system because we cannot you know organizing mobility is an exchange so it requires you know that's all your partners embrace the system so this is where we are at the same time you know technology evolves very quickly as compared to when we started this initiative so that means that we need to also you know to touch up with all the latest technology requirements and our objective is to really build my life very much because over time we still use this but before we need to to build a current digital ecosystem for the high education institutions so that is why our plan in the phase two of this initiative is to really work together with your password to the european digital credentials and all the other european tools that are in development to ensure these requirements between all these different systems so if you want the experience of your students we'll start with the european initiative to facilitate you know the exchange of the learning agreement etc then it's important that it's connected with your pass because your pass will give the possibility to the learner to to change the outcomes of this mobility in terms of this system in terms of skins etc and linking it with the european digital credentials so that's why we're working very closely did you like did you connect with your people to create this ecosystem and all together and thank you very much and because in a way it also speaks to some of the administrative attempts i think that roughly you mentioned but i'm sure everybody and who's been engaged with the european university alliance knows only too well kind of what they mean but i think that also still raises i think uh honestly that's a bit at the heart of some of your contributions which is that um it also speaks of some of the oh it kind of exposes i guess some of the defects in our own university structures or the way we are administered and so forth and so again the question i guess is about mainstreaming to what extent do we sort of try and fit it fit in the what we create in the european university alliances and karin there was this one slide that that i was particularly struck by where you where you articulated how the credits relate in different ways to the three different universities because they have different nomenclatures etc and and i guess so the question is to what extent do we sort of make this work out to what extent can we can we allow this initiative to really transform us and our universities through the initiatives as through the ideas and the inspiration so again it's really about that tension can you maybe unpack a little bit more that tension between innovation and mainstreaming i guess and how we get that right karin rafael andris because andris also speaks to what you said right i mean the volunteerism versus the kind of i mean i'm very very very briefly so just to to make some a very very clear example for instance so uh within our europe we're trying to work on joint degrees on sustainability but initially we got some regulations such that if you build a degree program it has to be into boxes okay and there is no such box as sustainability so if we were to join that we wouldn't be able to fit it so on the one hand given that our ministry and is is so keen on pursuing european alliances and joint degrees and also the accreditation agency is really a part of an institution for us and we're working on that it's very useful for us to say look if we want to build strongly interdisciplinary programs uh as you are suggesting we should do then we need to change the national regulations because otherwise our degree programs are not going to be updated with respect to the lines of interdisciplinary and transparency uh projects and and educational programs across europe so this is this for us is a very useful tool to pursue what we would like to pursue suggesting that the direction is that very one so it's a very clear example on our side thank you yeah i think the obstacles you know vary uh depending on which country you're in so one of the things that we struggle with is just how the teaching load of the professors are calculated or staff members are calculated and how much flexibility you have you know to do things outside of what you are allocated for your standard job description so that sometimes you know makes it difficult to really become creative and get really involved and have larger volumes of teaching offered to to european students outside of the outside of the classroom you know and this is what the where the alliance i think differs from the exchange programs that are already running because now we're really trying to develop innovative education programs and pedagogical programs together and with with very little leeway to do this given the constraints that we work under i mean you've mentioned it jan i mean even these kind of low key uh and small volume programs need to be developed and somebody needs to run them and make sure that the students get their teaching experience and grade the papers and so on so i think you know having working in a system that was not set up to work on that large scale is is a challenge and so we need to make it kind of a a system where we have more flexibility that's definitely correct and we need and i'm completely with alpha l on that point a lot of it is working with a national level because as joe has stressed in the paper we are still very much embedded in our national system so this is definitely something that we need to to work on and that's too uh the alliance will help us with that having um that kind of argument in our backs is definitely a um a very huge lever and and vida if i can just bring you back into this question that comes in just for two minutes but but you you are alluding to your 50 mobility targets and in the sense that you are in some ways um maybe a bit i guess like everybody like every national system um still away from that um what do you see as the main obstacles there is this about is about structure or is it about the student's willingness is it about economics what what what do you see is the key concern there uh well we actually had a a white paper on international student mobility department in 2020 uh well six months into the pandemic uh and uh what it's sort of well what the most important point there is that it's there there is a need to create a cultural change in universities basically uh student mobility should not be seen as something you do as an extra or as something you like to do uh it's something that should actually be an integral part of the study program so mobility windows need to be there uh and uh opt out solutions saying that i mean if you don't want to go on mobility it's it's uh the choice the active choice you have to make is not to be mobile but not to be mobile you should opt out of mobile of mobility here is not opt in basically uh to very clearly show that this is what we expect that you should be a mobile student uh and we're we're far from there yet and there are some universities that highly implemented study programs that do have uh opt-out solutions and there are others that uh the universities are actually well piloting schemes like that needless to say there's skepticism in the sector as to whether this is the right way to go and nobody could be forced to be mobile but i think at least from our point of view i mean it's not necessarily about finances because students can bring their national students financing abroad it's full of affordable uh and it's more about uh i think the signals sent by higher education institutions they need to take the responsibility themselves as well to send out students have the right agreements uh make sure that the faculty are concerned uh and do not discourage mobility actually encourage it and and and send a clear signal to the students that we think it's a good idea that you're mobile we even expected them uh but uh that takes time to instill that cultural change thank you i just wanted to oh caron very quickly you have just a couple minutes left i completely agree can you hear me now yes yeah i completely agree and i think it's very important to get the academics on staff you know across the system on board with that because uh they are the ones you know who work most closest with the students and they are the ones who definitely should give the message that it's something that is highly desirable uh also concerning the issue of employability you know sometimes it might also be an option to work with somebody like a company for a practical phase of the studies and there it could also be interesting for companies and enterprises to see if they have a partner in in europe uh they would like to send interns to for example for like shorter phases thank you i just have um still three questions three colleagues to ask a question so so um not much time to do it but still they're important so andres can i just ask you so does the university of genders been really very successful and focused on on developing a russell's mundus programs and in a sense you've you've been really um successful at creating joint degrees also in in this way and and i was just wondering when you look towards a european joint degree from that experience what is it that you would how would you see the value out of a european degree thank you i i think let's call it the symbol and symbols can be important and we need to render our common initiatives our our our integrated efforts and through such an initiative this can be established and of course we we we see that it creates new momentum new momentum for dialogue we are involved in these pilot projects and a lot of work is being done maybe sometimes work that has been lost in the past and this is being taken up again because let's face it not everywhere a very uh or or let's call it uh completely a facilitating framework for the establishment of joint programs has been established so in some systems we would really like still to see a progress being made in our case we were lucky so to see to have a very uh facilitating framework in our flamish legislative context since the mid-2000s and uh we would like to to take this forward because in the end what we feel the trenders best joint efforts is the fact that you can establish joint degrees of course bearing in mind what we already pointed out earlier today is that not all corporations should be full-blown joint programs and there are also very valuable types of corporations at other levels but if we want to go this way then we should render it into the best possible way and show disintegrated nature of our cooperation I also heard today that the comments was made what we do should be recognizable to our external stakeholders well such a degree would really make this visible thank you um Vanessa before I turn to Joe for a final some final comments I mean can I just ask you how I mean it seems to me a really important thread running through all of the the contributions has been the the the diversity and the fact that there's so much going on and so much extraordinary and so much exciting stuff going on and there is so I guess as soon as you start thinking about a European degree you are on already addressed beginning to address all these complex challenges that Rafaela and Karin et cetera were mentioning that the same time there's so much more than in sense needs to be done so I guess I guess how how can we find ways to ensure that we recognize and validate um the the kinds of things that are coming through the fore that are really exciting and they really need to be supported absolutely no I'm very happy that you asked me the question because if not I would have in any case give some feedback on that because I heard a lot the needs for this diversity that it's not that all corporations should go should be done through the European universities alliances fully agree with that it's not that all corporations should be to join European degree fully agree with that so the objective of the future has this first program should really continue to support this diversity of corporation models and this diversity of mobility format so that we can really make sure that a larger number and a larger the more diverse number of learners can access and succeed in education so that's absolutely fundamental and this would continue nevertheless it's also important to make sure that those that have the possibility the level of ambition to go deep in the transnational corporation such as through European universities that can lead not only but possibly to join three program joint degrees to give them if you want the possibility to develop it so this is what we are looking at and what we are working on together with the high division sector and together with the member states and and and we see we see a distinction between the the level of ambition and the reality and I like very much that you're interested in this report we see this tension and that is why we have launched this Erasmus first experimentation call because whenever we discuss in the council with the member states they are not always despite now more and more dialogue direct dialogue between the ministries and and the industries which is extremely positive but we see still some sometimes that it's yeah resistance to see the realities to put it politely so so that is why these we are very happy with these experimentation polls that we have 90 high education institutions across Europe experimenting together with 17 different ministries and national politicians because as as one of you and so all of you said DRD value is really this cooperation very concrete on how this makes work and and we have heard from some of the alliances that they have already done wonders simply by facilitating this dialogue and this will facilitate the work not only of the universities not only using golden juncture degrees but as Andrew said this will help at all levels of trust national corporations so that's really really objective so the diversity fully agree it will continue diversity inclusion will continue to be a top high priority definitely thank you so much Vanessa and Joe you we are out of time but you do have to have a final word sorry thank you I would give it a very very very brave absolutely fascinating and and really I think what what to me it's so striking is the opportunity for cultural change and and that's sort of something I was actually sort of scribbling on as we were discussing and and sort of the need to translate nationally the international opportunity and and I think that's really so well put by Vanessa now that this is the key that we actually really need to to to sort of shape collaboratively and and use to open multiple multiple doors in order to achieve cultural change we need change from within we need to consolidate this work with existing structures of institutions and move the conversation around international learning opportunities from sort of nice to heads or things that may happen in one office or in one stage to the core central business of universities unless it becomes central to education and research we all have processes we all go through curriculum review curriculum development we all have tools where we think around promotion we think around how we operate at sort of department school faculty whatever is the structure this is really where this conversation needs to translate and to be in because this is where we have mechanisms which are already in place and those mechanisms need to interface in order for all these are cogs of the machine and them to me I think what we're showing is that by no means it's an either or we can't operate we operate in an ecosystem and we need to facilitate the process and the products when we have the conditions for good products they absolutely need to be supported they need to also become learnings for facilitating the process and we also really need to think how we can actually really bring those sort of translation mechanism in every institution and I think that's something that we were talking about the need to have visibility we as we as we need to articulate the value added of transactional collaboration the same as with employability with employment agendas and so on visibility for the sector we often think oh well there are certain things that are visible but we know from evidence that this is actually really not as straightforward but there's an opportunity this cultural change is also an opportunity for a cultural change around flexible learning around how we can actually really bring those together and and I think we have a moment and we need to make the more also of opportunities that we have when we go into the sort of meta level so today we are under the guilt we also need to mobilize those absolutely invaluable spaces where we can actually really go into the sort of meta race above the reality of the institution the alliance and so on and and and really share and and I think I want to stop with sort of the need to bring this conversation in sort of in the consolidation in the cultural change and also in the translation of experimentation to concrete and tangible pathways that would then be part of courses and that's the only way to create opportunities for the kind of proportion that that that that we all want to make sure that would benefit from the work we do thank you thank you so much to to all of you in the audience for for for listening in and engaging into the very end thank you so much to our panelists and I just want to thank you for that with the notion that we are at a European moment a European moment that is not about European universities as such as you've pointed out but that is really about you know this moment of thinking about how mobility how the moment that we are at really informs and infuses our universities and that is a moment that has come about and that is that is going to develop through the collaboration and the conversations and the commitment that we all have here in this room the policymakers the the institutions the national agencies and the government so this this has been a very visible and clear expression of this this collaboration but clearly we need to continue thank you very much to all of you and we look forward to continuing the dialogue and we will of course send all of you in the audience and panelists the inside paper once it will also reflect the conversation and the dialogue today thank you