Event date: May 19, 2022

Event time: 10am - 4pm CET

Location: Brussels Marriott Hotel Grand Place

The European Universities Initiative, supported by the Commission in 2019 and 2020, offers one vision of how European Higher Education may evolve in the future. The European Universities Initiative is a potent collaboration between more than 200 organisations across 41 alliances and leverages the individual capabilities and capacities of these members to build new organisations, creating opportunities for students together, better than any could provide on their own. EARMA strongly welcomes and supports these new, vibrant and exciting collaborations. 

Reflecting the history of the programmes evolution, the concentration has been on the delivery of the academic and related aspects of the collaborations. The essential cog in the machine for the successful delivery of these universities are the administrative services and, particularly in relation to the Research and Innovation aspects, the RMAs across these universities.

EARMA is keen to support members and the wider community of RMAs in their efforts to support these universities. With this in mind, EARMA is proposing to establish a 'Thematic Group' focusing on these universities. EARMA would now like to gauge interest in such a 'Thematic Group'. To do that, we are holding two events : 1 remote event, March 15, 2022, and a second in-person event, May 19, 2022.

The 1st event (March 15, 2022) concentrated on these universities and how they are progressing and was opened by Professor Ludovic Thilly - Vice-RectorPoitiers/ EC2U, the Secretary General of the Coimbra group and the convenor of the FOREU2 high-level coordination group - who spoke about the Initiative and how it is likely to evolve. This was followed by 4 short presentations and Q&A from individual university networks. The four participating universities alliances was Una Europa, EUt+, 4EU+ and UNIVERSEH.

The 2nd event (May 19, 2022) will take those presentations, your reflections and continue the conversation with the intention of establishing the 'EARMA Universities Initiative Thematic Group' and its work programme for the coming years.

The costs for participation in this event are eligible costs under the relevant Work Package “Dissemination” of your European University Erasmus+ and/or SWAFS.

EARMA looks forward to welcoming you at this 2nd exploratory event in Brussels at the dawn of a new era in European Higher Education.
 

Agenda

Click here to see the agenda. 
 

Speakers

Stijn Delaure - Policy Officer, European Commission, DG R&I
Stijn is policy officer in the ‘R&I Actors and Research Careers’ unit of the European Commission's Directorate General for Research and Innovation, in particular dealing with policy developments for higher education sector and research careers, in the context of the new European Research Area (ERA). Stijn obtained a PhD in biotechnology in 2003 and was researcher in academia and business, research and policy adviser at KU Leuven, active in LERU and other university umbrella organisations, before he joined the European Commission in 2017 as policy officer and sherpa for the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions.
 

Doris Alexander, BA, MSc – Associate Director of European Engagement, Trinity College Dublin
Doris established Trinity College’s Research Development Office in 1994 and together with previous researcher experience, has a history of interaction with the EC Research Framework Programme (both policy and project level) dating back to Framework 2. Coupled with experience of other EU programmes, Doris is an EU policy and strategy expert who drove the successful development and implementation of the University’s first in-depth Research Diversification Strategy. Doris took up post as the Associate Director of European Engagement in 2019 and is responsible for, the development of strategies of engagement with the Horizon Europe and Erasmus Programmes, advising the Provost/President around European policy and funding and working to get early insight on new EU initiatives so as to maximise the opportunity space for the University. She has been involved in several EC stakeholder groups including working on the concept development of the Erasmus European Universities initiative and currently is involved in aspects of the implementation of the ERA policy agenda. She was one of the principal authors of the Erasmus+ CHARM-EU European Universities alliance application, the Horizon 2020 Swafs associated project and, more recently, the application submitted to the Erasmus+ for intensification funding for the European Universities alliances.   

Doris served on the board and Policy and Representation Committee of the European Association of Research Managers and Administrators (EARMA) and was the inaugural vice chair of the COIMBRA Research Officers grouping. She is currently on the steering group of the European Research Projects Managers Group of the League of European Research Universities (LERU) and is on the management team for the CHARM-EU European Universities alliance and is the Chair in 2022 of the R&I subgroup of the FOREU1 network (the network of the 17 European Universities alliances funded through the first Erasmus+ pilot call). She has represented Ireland on the Expert Group of Member states on the Horizon Europe Model Grant Agreements and is the Trinity contact for Science Business, Europe. She is the Principal investigator on a national grant (Enterprise Ireland) focussed on driving out more Arts Humanities and Social science engagement in the EC Framework programme. She was a Vice WG lead in the recently concluded INTREPID EU COST (European Cooperation in Science and Technology) action which focussed on interdisciplinarity. Doris holds a BA (Hons) in Mathematical Science and an MSc in Computer Science (Health informatics) from Trinity College. 
Twitter: @dorisalex_tweet
 

Initiators 

Eleonora Zuolo works at the central Research and Innovation Department at Sorbonne University. She has a 12-year experience as a Research Manager. She has supported researchers at both the unit level (2009-2012) and the central administrative level (2013-present) at 3 different higher education and research institutions in France. Her key competences include consultation in pre-award, professional development, institutional representation and engagement strategies. She is a trainer for both researchers and research staff. Eleonora has been a member of EARMA since 2014. She was part of the 1st cohort of the European Certificate in Research Management and is currently involved in the Association as Board Member.
 

Dr. John Donovan, former Chairman of EARMA and Head of Research at Technological University Dublin in Ireland, is a PhD in molecular genetics from the National University of Ireland.  In 1986 he worked at the Institute of Biochemistry in the University of Frankfurt and after 3 years moved to the University of Leeds. Returning to Ireland in 1992, he took up a position as Senior Scientist with St. Luke’s Institute of Cancer Research. In 1994 he moved to a position as Executive Secretary of the Irish Research Scientists’ Association and was responsible for many of the briefing and policy documents prepared by the Association that ultimately led to the establishment of Science Foundation Ireland and The Programme for Research in Third level Institutions with a combined budget of some €13b. Having left the bench, John moved into research and innovation management and, for the present, is Head of Research at Technological University Dublin.  John has served on the board of EARMA for 6 years including 4 years as EARMA Chairperson. His current interest is what makes research sustainable in new, small universities and the transition to ‘Open Research’.
John is on a number of national and international policy groups, including Ireland’s National Open Research Committee and was on the Irish Government’s Higher Education Research Group.
John has been a radio journalist, co-produced and presented, what was until recently, Ireland’s longest-running science radio show and The Millennium Thomas Davis Lecture Series on Irish public radio broadcaster, RTÉ. John has also done time as an itinerant PhD examiner in various places in Ireland and Europe. John is married to Lynda and has one child, a son.
 

Covid-19 

Please note that this event is intended to be held fully in-person. Seeing that we cannot know the exact measures that will be in place in May 2022, all registrants will be informed about the Covid-19 measures in Belgium and at the venue a week before the event by EARMA. Currently, we assume that all participants will be asked to show their Covid safe ticket upon arrival before being able to enter the event area. One month before the event, we will evaluate the situation and see if it is still possible to have it be in-person. If we won´t be able to run it in-person, we will change it to an online event, and participants will get the opportunity to be reimbursed. Please note that if this is the case, the day of the event might change. 
 

Contact

For further information, please email events@earma.org.