Conference on the European Universities initiative by French Embassy in Spain

  On Monday 22nd May in Madrid, Spain, was held a meeting of Spanish and French universities that are part of the European Universities alliances, organised by the French embassy in Spain. The meeting was attended by representatives of the EU-CONEXUS partner universities, La Rochelle Université with Jean-Marc Ogier, President of EU-CONEXUS and Rector of La Rochelle Université, and the Catholic University of Valencia with Elena Floristán, Vice-Rector for Strategic Coordination and Internationalisation and Neringa Narbutiene, Responsable of EU-CONEXUS. 

 The conference is the continuation for the implementation of bilateral agreements established in various areas such as the internationalisation of universities in Africa and Latin America, the mobility of students and researchers, increasing the number of doctoral students, or the exploitation of common scientific and technical infrastructures.

One of the round tables was dedicated to The importance of the flexibility of legislation to create and verify international joint degrees. EU-CONEXUS together with 5 other partnerships, from the ED-AFFICHE project, will open the debate among universities, ministries of higher education and quality assurance agencies on how to facilitate international and flexible education through European partnerships and the European Degree label.

Ms Elena Floristan moderated the round table on External and Internal Communication, where European partnerships such as EUTOPIA, EELLISA and UNITE! explained how to improve the dissemination of academic offers and results of the universities both externally and internally. In addition, this round table was attended by Miguel Ángel Milán Arellano, coordinator of the communication area of SEPIE.  

All participants agreed that:

France and Spain have the potential to be the biggest contributors in making international collaboration in the field of higher education more flexible, as they are the most represented countries among the European partnerships.