ENLIGHT
ENLIGHT* is an organization of European universities established in 2020. It is formed by ten comprehensive, research-intensive universities from nine European countries: Belgium, Estonia, France, Germany, Ireland, Netherlands, Slovakia, Spain, and Sweden. The tenth (and associated) member is Switzerland as a landlocked country.
The ENLIGHT network has two projects:
- ENLIGHT RISE (Research and Innovation agenda with and for society) seeks to strengthen the research and innovation dimension of our network.
- In synergy with ENLIGHT’s educational components and surrounding ecosystems, it will deploy a comprehensive joint transformation agenda for our universities.
*European university Network to promote equitable quality of Life, sustainability and Global engagement through Higher education Transformation
Project Enlight focuses on learning collaboration, increased learning mobility and supporting activities.
By the end of the project, the UT and other partner universities will have
- a common quality approach for teaching, research and support activities;
- initiated various short-term learning formats implementing challenge-based learning experiences: living labs, summer schools, intensive courses;
- integrated the teaching of generic competences, e.g. multilingualism and management skills, in their curricula;
- created an integrated system of green mobility, involving different forms of learning mobility (physical, combined and virtual, long-term and short-term);
- opened study opportunities for students of all partner universities;
- created digital solutions based on standardised data exchange to support learning mobility;
- organised systemic cooperation with local, European and global stakeholders;
- created a system to measure the impact of the project.
The UT is responsible for the successful completion of two tasks. The first is an inter-connected digital campus that facilitates students’ access to study opportunities offered by different universities and contributes to the creation of the system of automatic recognition of study periods across the consortium. At the UT, Ivar Koppel leads the work package of the digital campus.
The second responsibility of the UT is the design of the ENLIGHT Competence Framework. In this work package, partner universities agree on which competences the students should obtain by completing different forms of study. At the UT, this work is led by Ülle Tensing.
All partner universities, including the UT, will create the so-called regional academies bringing together students, researchers, local governments, entrepreneurs and non-profit organisations. The role of regional academies is to identify local challenges for which solutions will be sought in annual living labs.
Members of the regional academy will also belong to the think tanks focusing on particular topics. The think tanks will define the learning opportunities and research projects of the flagship domains. Also, each think tank will organise a short programme and a European dialogue (a conference) involving experts outside the consortium.
The project encompasses several other actions in different domains the UT is involved in. Among other actions, the following will be created:
- joint Erasmus Mundus curricula in five flagship areas;
- a global engagement module (10 ECTS) comprising subjects and activities from different universities. It aims to provide students with generic competences required in a multicultural society;
- peer review groups for teaching staff;
- the ENLIGHT Doctoral Network;
- a teacher education network (and a teacher education conference will be organised).
The objective is to become more competitive and innovative together, leveraging and synergizing our respective strengths and capitalizing on our innovation potential and partnerships with our surrounding ecosystems to jointly promote a greener, healthier, more equitable and sustainable Europe.
ENLIGHT RISE key activities:
- Help in identifying partners for research projects from within the network: joint R&I support group + by the end of the project a digital matching tool.
- Seed funding to support partnerships between ENLIGHT researchers in 5 domains.
- Support in the preparation of large strategic project proposals + support kit to researchers to help them build their proposals.
- Identification of ways to connect to and share relevant digital research infrastructures.
- Establishment of a network of early career researchers (post-docs, <10 yrs. from PhD) to foster collaboration and mobility, including networking events.
- Support for collaboration with industrial partners, e.g. via workshops.
- Support for the implementation of public engagement activities and Open Science practices, via knowledge sharing and development of an ENLIGHT Open Access & Data Management starter kit for researchers.
ENLIGHT RISE project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 101035819.
