The Euro­pean Union has select­ed 14 new Euro­pean uni­ver­si­ty alliances fol­low­ing the 5th Eras­mus+ call for pro­pos­als and it is in this frame­work that UTC and its 8 part­ners were cho­sen for the SUNRISE alliance. The alliance will receive €14.4 mil­lion fund­ing over four years. These funds will be used to imple­ment an ambi­tious plan aimed at strength­en­ing sev­er­al key areas: research, teach­ing, inno­va­tion and part­ner­ships with the local, Euro­pean and inter­na­tion­al socio-eco­nom­ic world.

The chal­lenge for the SUNRISE alliance project (Small­er Uni­ver­si­ties Net­work for Region­al Inno­v­a­tive and Sus­tain­able Evo­lu­tion) is cru­cial, as Prof. Claire Rossi, Pres­i­dent of UTC, explains: “SUNRISE is an alliance of Euro­pean uni­ver­si­ties that high­lights the role and actions of small uni­ver­si­ties occu­py­ing strate­gic posi­tions. They work for devel­op­ment, inno­va­tion and sus­tain­abil­i­ty, at the heart of var­i­ous Euro­pean regions, in close col­lab­o­ra­tion with local busi­ness­es». Thanks to this new Euro­pean uni­ver­si­ty alliance, UTC will strength­en its impact at the heart of the Hauts-de-France region. Small uni­ver­si­ties, locat­ed in medi­um­sized towns, face major chal­lenges such as the «brain drain», reduced attrac­tive­ness com­pared to large city estab­lish­ments, lim­it­ed resources and com­pe­ti­tion from larg­er insti­tu­tions. How­ev­er, they play a fun­da­men­tal role in the attrac­tive­ness of their regions and form an essen­tial link between the aca­d­e­m­ic world and soci­ety, inter­act­ing direct­ly with the socioe­co­nom­ic envi­ron­ment of their territories.

The SUNRISE alliance strength­ens col­lab­o­ra­tion between acad­e­mia and indus­try aimed at cre­at­ing sym­bi­ot­ic and inno­v­a­tive mod­els in part­ner­ship with region­al com­pa­nies. This ini­tia­tive aims to fos­ter local eco­nom­ic devel­op­ment while encour­ag­ing cut­ting-edge research and indus­tri­al inno­va­tion. It also focus­es on inter­na­tion­al edu­ca­tion by intro­duc­ing inno­v­a­tive cur­ric­u­la and encour­ag­ing stu­dent mobil­i­ty, all of which con­sti­tute fun­da­men­tal ele­ments for UTC. SUNRISE part­ners play a key role in the trans­for­ma­tion of ter­ri­to­ries, mak­ing them more attrac­tive and com­pet­i­tive while tack­ling envi­ron­men­tal, soci­etal and dig­i­tal chal­lenges with local play­ers. They are also com­mit­ted to ani­mat­ing a Euro­pean research net­work, designed to strength­en links and exchanges of ideas based on Euro­pean val­ues, to encour­age inno­va­tion, tech­nol­o­gy trans­fer and to estab­lish a com­mon net­work of stakeholders.

Thanks to this call for projects won by the alliance part­ners, excit­ing new prospects in Europe have opened up for UTC! This suc­cess tes­ti­fies to UTC’s abil­i­ty to inno­vate and adapt to con­tem­po­rary chal­lenges, while rein­forc­ing its aca­d­e­m­ic and sci­en­tif­ic influ­ence on a Euro­pean scale.

The founding members of the SUNRISE alliance project

• Ilme­nau Uni­ver­si­ty of Tech­nol­o­gy, Ger­many (coor­di­na­tor);
• Uni­ver­sité de tech­nolo­gie de Com­pieg­ne, France; 
• the Free Uni­ver­si­ty of Bozen-Bolzano, Italy; 
• the Uni­ver­si­ty of Infor­ma­tion Tech­nol­o­gy and Man­age­ment in Rzeszów, Poland; 
• the Euro­pean Uni­ver­si­ty Cyprus, Cyprus; 
• Mälardalen Uni­ver­si­ty, Sweden; 
• the Uni­ver­si­ta Politec­ni­ca delle Marche, Italy; 
• «Dže­mal Bijedić» Uni­ver­si­ty of Mostar, Bosnia- Herzegovina; 
• Poly­tech­nic Uni­ver­si­ty of Viana do Caste­lo, Portugal.
• Cran­field Uni­ver­si­ty, UTC’s long-stand­ing strate­gic part­ner in the UK, is also an asso­ciate mem­ber of the alliance.

MB