UPF participated in the ninth EUTOPIA Week, held from 17 to 21 June at Babes-Bolyai University in the city of Cluj-Napoca (Romania). On this occasion, the biannual meeting of the EUTOPIA alliance gathered its 10 member universities and, for the first time, its six global partners.

This edition marked a defining moment in the construction of a cohesive alliance. The governance of EUTOPIA, aligned with clear objectives, has allowed the project to speed up its development towards the construction of a cohesive alliance, according to the UPF delegation, led by the rector, Laia de Nadal, and the vice-rector for Knowledge Transfer, Vanesa Daza.

With the slogan “Pathways to cohesion”, EUTOPIA Week focused on debating initiatives to promote unity and collaboration between universities. The core objective was to generate cross-cutting knowledge based on the initiatives that are carried out within the framework of the alliance’s central project, EUTOPIA MORE, and its satellite projects.

The UPF rector, Laia de Nadal, a member of the Board of Presidents, and the emeritus professor of the UPF Department of Economics and Business, Vicente Ortún, a member of the Advisory Council, participated in meetings to define EUTOPIA’s long-term future strategy, its priority initiatives and the need to bring the different projects of the alliance into line with its global strategy.

The current status of the EUTOPIA MORE project was presented at a session led by Mattia Bellotti, secretary general of the alliance, together with the vice-rectors and Lucía Conte, EUTOPIA project manager at UPF. Cross-disciplinary sessions, known as cross-work packages, were also held for the first time and focused on discussing possible synergies between the different work packages within the EUTOPIA MORE project and between the different projects of the Alliance. These sessions were led by Maite Viudes and Lucía Conte, head of the EUTOPIA Office and EUTOPIA project manager at UPF, respectively.

Other notable sessions were devoted to the so-called EUTOPIA Initiatives, where panel discussions focused on ongoing initiatives. One such initiative is the Young Leaders Academy, to provide support to young researchers or promote their research collaborations with the Alliance. Another is the GLENN Office (from the EUTOPIA Train project), which aims to strengthen synergies between the Alliance’s member universities. Also dealt with was the subject of Connected Communities, to promote opportunities for learning and growth among students of the different universities linked to the Alliance. At one of these sessions, Carmen Pérez, UPF delegate of the EUTOPIA MORE project, highlighted the value of these initiatives. “The added value of the Connected Communities for teachers is the opportunity to collaborate in teaching practices, and for students, to live a new experience that goes beyond Erasmus. This must be taken into account”. Other discussion forums also dealt with this topic, in the form of different workshops with the involvement of representatives of work teams from each university, to discuss the challenges facing these communities and possible solutions. Mireia Calm, a technician from the EUTOPIA Office at UPF, attended in her capacity as local facilitator.

First EUTOPIA Health Day

As part of EUTOPIA Week, the first EUTOPIA Health Day took place. Eva Martín, director of the UPF Research Service, attended on behalf of the University. This event gathered researchers, postdoctoral fellows and doctoral students from the EUTOPIA Health consortium to showcase their latest findings in various areas of health research. Their presentations highlighted cutting-edge solutions and best practices, while master’s and undergraduate students were able to connect with research groups within the consortium and establish new professional relationships and sow the seeds for future collaboration.

A week of intense work for UPF students at EUTOPIA Week

UPF students Maria Pérez and Eudald Sanz, first-year students of Global Studies and Journalism, respectively, also participated in EUTOPIA Week. Both sat on the EUTOPIA Student Council, the body responsible for conveying the standpoint and interests of the students of the Alliance. Throughout the week, they met daily with all the students from the other Alliance member universities. The meetings focused on the main challenges of the student representative body, such as its communications (internal and with the rest of the Alliance and the universities). In this regard, the possibility of proposing membership of the EUTOPIA general assembly and to participate in the different work packages of EUTOPIA MORE, coordinated by UPF, were addressed.

In addition, the UPF student Maria Pérez presented her candidacy to chair the Student Council. Finally, the current chair and vice-chair, from the Universities of Cergy and Ljubljana, respectively, were re-elected.

The two UPF students, who had already participated in two editions of the Ideas Club at Cergy (2023) and at Ca’Foscari (2024), describe their experience at EUTOPIA Week as very intense and enriching, particularly valuing the opportunity to meet students from other countries and learn about the running of the alliance first-hand. Eudald Sanz comments: “Seeing how the alliance is organized from within has been revealing for us and has allowed us to understand how we, as students, can take action to collaborate in the construction of EUTOPIA”. For her part, Maria Pérez concluded: “We leave EUTOPIA Week with very good feelings for the future; it has been demonstrated that the Alliance is set to continue and students must be encouraged to get involved in it”.