Femke de Backere, associate professor at Ghent University and senior scientist at imec, blends software engineering with impactful healthcare research. Through ENLIGHT, she co-teaches the interdisciplinary summer school Innovation Game: Applying Serious Game Design in Health Care at Uppsala University. In this interview, she shares how ENLIGHT has helped her build international collaborations and push the boundaries of education and research in personalized, serious games. Read the full interview here.

Join University of Galway, University of Groningen/UMCG and Uppsala University on April 8^th  for a dynamic pan-European forum exploring Public and Patient Involvement (PPI) in research. This event brings together distinguished speakers from Sweden, the Netherlands, and Ireland who will share insights from case studies, highlighting both the commonalities and differences in PPI practices across diverse European contexts. There will be opportunities to hear perspectives from other ENLIGHT colleagues across Europe.  

This event will take place in University of Galway, Ireland from 10am-4pm (GMT) and will also be available online to international colleagues, ensuring ample opportunity for engagement and participation for virtual attendees. This event is kindly funded by ENLIGHT.

Additional details and registration available here.

Throughout the session, speakers with audience participation will discuss innovative strategies, collaborative approaches, and the nuanced challenges of integrating public and patient voices into research. Attendees will gain valuable perspectives on how these varied experiences contribute to shaping inclusive research across Europe. 

Whether you are a researcher, member of the public, PPI contributor, student, policymaker, or stakeholder passionate about PPI, this event offers a unique opportunity to learn from real-world case studies, engage in cross-border dialogue, and be inspired by the evolving landscape of public and patient involvement in research. 

To stimulate and support the bottom-up cooperation between the ENLIGHT university communities, ENLIGHT launched a first set of calls for joint initiatives in April 2024 . A second set of calls is launched in April 2025. 

Each call targets joint proposals for specific types of actions involving at least three ENLIGHT instutions. 

1. Call for ENLIGHT Incubator Grants: to support joint programmes, joint future-proof education projects and stepping-stones for international learning across the six ENLIGHT focus areas. A 3rd call will be launched in Spring 2026.
2. Call for ENLIGHT Thematic Networks: to support interdisciplinary academic networks for developing joint challenge-based activities linking education, research and outreach across the six ENLIGHT focus areas. The current call is the last one, no further calls will be launched before November 2027.
3. (ongoing) ENLIGHT+ call: to foster new emerging joint (small-scale, inclusive and/or sustainable) initiatives across disciplines. This is a call with several deadlines per year, to be continued until November 2027.

Find out more HERE.

180 participants from 18 different countries, 55 different organizations and a total of 50 universities/ universities of applied sciences. We look back on a very inspiring ENLIGHT IMPACT Conference, hosted by the University of Groningen. We engaged with inspiring keynote speakers Marthe Walvoort, Thomas Alslev Christensen and Igor Campillo. We have had thought-provoking discussions with Maria Hägglund, Daniela Lud, Frederik Verbeke, Natalie Walsh, Iona Dewandeler and Jorge Molina Martinez. Engaging campfire sessions by Julie Bayley, Maristela do Nascimento Rocha, Nele Bracke, Jacqueline Drost, Lorenzo Squintani and Balzhan Orazbayeva and inspring workshops from Emma Siddall, Ailsa Cook, Saskia Walcott, Giovanna Lima, Anabel Sánchez Plaza. Anja Smykowski, Esther de Smet and Zuzana Lisonová. Thank you all for your input on how to bring about meaningful impact and break down the walls between science and society.

Thank you to students Manon Colombo from EC2U, Niloofar Hashemi from ENHANCE and Karami Setaye    sh from CIRCLE U for sharing your experiences with IMPACT in your respective alliances.

We warmly congratulate our new ENLIGHT IMPACT Ambassadors (and teams) with their winning projects and pitches:
Ane Eguren Ikazuriaga (University of the Basque Country), Cassandra Alighieri (Ghent University), Muriel Grenon (University of Galway), Nahia Idoiaga Mondragon (University of the Basque Country), Pádraig MacNeela (University of Galway), Sara Lambrechts (Ghent University) and Jan Trachet (Ghent University).

And lastly, a very special thank you to the ENLIGHT IMPACT Conference Committee and to the University of Groningen team for hosting this event.

We hope to see you all again at Comenius University Bratislava for the next ENLIGHT IMPACT Conference in March 2027.