The founding goals of the Network are to strengthen and develop cooperation in the areas of research, academic education and service to society among a cluster of highly-ranked, young research universities in Europe on an equal basis and for their common benefit.
UDI-Africa is an ERASMUS+ Capacity Building project coordinated by Nova University Lisbon, aiming to enhance the quality of teaching and research of four African Universities from Angola and Mozambique and empower these Higher Education institutions to play an effective impacting role in fostering sustainable and inclusive development in their regions. After almost 3 years of work, the UDI-Africa project came to an end but its impact will continue.
Major shortage of personal protective equipment: it has been a recurring theme throughout the corona crisis. But from now on, healthcare workers at the Antwerp University Hospital will have access to a steady supply of FFP2 masks, manufactured in the heart of Antwerp by product developers at the University of Antwerp.
Brunel University London has intensified its success in winning research funding from Horizon 2020 programme, with ten new awards, bringing around €3.3M to the university, in the second quarter of 2019-20 alone. The lion’s share of Brunel’s EU funding in this quarter will be devoted to developments in sustainable technology that will allow greener transport, buildings and energy, and contribute to the circular economy.
In May, the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters announced the 2020 Kavli Prize Laureates in the fields of astrophysics, nanoscience and neuroscience. This year’s Kavli Prize honours scientists whose research has transformed our understanding of the very big, the very small and the very complex. Among the laureates, who share USD 1 million in each field, is Professor Harald Rose, physicist at Ulm University.
With two new research projects, the Institute of Molecular Virology at Ulm University's Medical Centre contributes to a deeper understanding of the characteristics and spread of the novel coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2). Following the funding call of the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) for research on COVID-19 in the wake of the SARS‑CoV‑2 outbreak, institute director Professor Frank Kirchhoff and Dr. Daniel Sauter have acquired over EUR 900.000 in funding.
This year, 'perspektive promotion' is celebrating its 10th birthday. With the programme, the Unit for Equal Opportunities at the University of Bremen successfully offers workshops and individual consultation for female PhD students in the humanities and social sciences. The offer is now being extended to the STEM subjects (science, technology, engineering and mathematics).
As part of its open science advocacy and engagement strategy, the Library at Brunel University London has developed a research data management workshop for students, embedded and delivered within teaching programmes, partnering initially with the College of Health, Medical and Life Sciences. The workshop was part of a pilot initiative, working with academic leads for the MSc Disease Mechanisms and Therapeutics, with the eventual aim of offering it across all programmes at the University.
Brunel's team of scientists working as part of the international CMS collaboration at CERN's Large Hadron Collider produced their thousandth journal paper on 19 June. An exceptional achievement and a first in the history of particle physics, the CMS collaboration team first published their first paper 12 years ago. Each of the 1000 papers provides a significant insight into our most fundamental scientific understanding of the universe, with topics on proton-proton to heavy ion to flavour physics. The discovery of the Higgs Boson discovery was their 183rd paper and won a Nobel prize.
On Thursday 9 July 2020, the new 24 European Universities Alliances have been officially announced: the 165 higher education institutions will join the already existing 17 alliances resulting from the first call of 2019.
Adding to the eleven YERUN members already involved in four alliances, two more members will be joining the family of European Universities: the University of Konstanz, involved in the ERUA alliance, and the University Paris-Dauphine-PSL, involved in the EELISA alliance.
Inspired by the recently published Final Report of the Open Science Policy Platform, the focus of this month's newsletter is on Open Science. YERUN is fully committed to the implementation of Open Science and this newsletter is the result of a quick tour across our network to have an overview on the state of play of Open Science initiatives among our members. From escape rooms to citizen engagement, there are so many ways in which the academic community can be aware of the importance of adopting an open science behaviour. Stay safe, stay open. See you next month!
The "YERUN Sport Days" are a collaboration between YERUN, the University of Antwerp and the PCU Committee. The PCU Committee is the university part of Panathlon International, an association recognised by the International Olympic Committee. During three days, each YERUN member is free to participate in a program including a YERUN workshop for professionals on Wednesday, a YERUN dinner for students and professionals on Thursday evening and the complete sports and event program from Wednesday to Friday of the PCU Games for student teams. The YERUN Sport days offer a platform where students and sport offices experience the advantages of the YERUN network and where awareness about the network is created among our students, all within an International Olympic Committee recognised framework of sport, fair play and universal friendship.
