The physicist Professor Metin Tolan will become the next President of the University of Göttingen. The Senate of the University unanimously agreed this decision today. The University Foundation Committee also approved this proposal unanimously. Tolan succeeds Professor Reinhard Jahn, who held the office until 31 December 2020. Since that time, full-time Vice-President Dr. Valérie Schüller has been Acting President of the University on an interim basis. Tolan's term of office is expected to begin in the spring.

On 19 November the Swedish government formally appointed Professor Anders Hagfeldt as new Vice-Chancellor of Uppsala University.

On January 25th 2021, Eva Ferreira was formally appointed Rector of the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU).

Between 2017 and 2020, Uppsala University and the University of Groningen work together in the Erasmus+ project LISTO: Latin American and European Cooperation on Innovation and Entrepreneurship. The consortium of universities from Sweden, Netherlands, Spain, Brazil, Uruguay and Argentina worked with practical tools for university-industry relations and entrepreneurial universities, and developed an International Virtual Classroom for entrepreneurship education.

The MOOC "Understanding EU-Russia Relations: Foreign Policy Actors, Institutions and Policy-Making" (2 ECTS) at the University of Tartu is open for registration. The registration deadline is 4 February 2021 at 22:59 (CET). The course is free of charge and fully online, running on the Moodle platform of the University of Tartu from 8 February to 14 March, 2021. Upon successful completion of the course, participants will be able to receive a digital certificate from the University of Tartu, which is worth 2 ECTS.

The Espace Langues, a centre for language learning andintercultural exchange at the University of Bordeaux, invites ENLIGHT students to join our virtual exchange for Spring 2021.

After a series of highly successful summer schools, ITG offers an online winter school from 25-29 January 2021. The winter school includes academic and practical learning about illicit finance, trafficking, and trade, and expert examination into strategies and practices about how to combat illicit trade.

To support joint activities between the nine ENLIGHT universities in the area of education and research, the University of Göttingen will fund with support of the DAAD and BMBF different mobility schemes for affiliates of the University of Göttingen and its ENLIGHT partners, as well as resources for the organisation and implementation of learning formats and other events that are part of the ENLIGHT portfolio.

Please note that only researchers, staff and PhD students from the University of Göttingen (incl. University Medical Center Göttingen) can apply.

Deadline for application is 15. February 2021. Calls will be published twice a year, a second call will be launched in May 2021.

All proposed projects must be thematically linked to one of the ENLIGHT challenges or other ENLIGHT focus areas. The integration of a minimum of three ENLIGHT partners in the proposal is required.

You can apply for the following funding schemes:  

Meet ENLIGHT, a new European University Alliance! Nine diverse universities, shaping the education of the future!

ENLIGHT will host a virtual kick-off week with several public sessions: inspiring keynotes, exciting lectures, a roundtable, virtual thematic networking, a cultural session and student perspectives! The ENLIGHT consortium was selected in the frame of “European Universities", the EC’s pilot program for new multilateral networks. ENLIGHT stands for 'European University Network to promote quality of life, sustainability & global engagement through Higher Education Transformation'. It unites nine universities: the Basque Country (ES), Bordeaux (FR), Bratislava (SK), Galway (IE), Göttingen (DE), Groningen (NL), Tartu (EE), Uppsala (SE) and Ghent (BE). Over the next three years ENLIGHT will focus on five themes to pilot new learning formats: climate change, health and well-being, inequality, digital revolution, energy and circularity. In the long term ENLIGHT wants to create an open space between the nine universities for learning, teaching and working together. Save the date!

The rectors of the European University Alliance ENLIGHT our looking forward to participate in a kick off webinar for rectors of the 24 European Universities Alliances that were selected under the second call of the European University Initiative, which is hosted by the European Commission on 4 November 2020.

In light of Germany’s Presidency of the Council of Europe, the University of Göttingen together with help from its partner universities, is organising the Conference 'United in Diversity: A Europe of Sustainability – Challenges and Perspectives' from 19 to 20 November 2020. We want to discuss the challenges of our society towards sustainable development and possible contributions of science to this as well as to show examples of the potential that sustainable dialogue and cooperation between different stakeholders can have.

One of the priorities of the European Commission is to fight the climate crisis and achieve climate neutrality in Europe by 2050. Research and innovation are to accelerate and navigate transformative changes, create solutions and engage citizens in the process. To this end, the Commission is allocating €1 billion under the last and biggest call of Horizon 2020: the Green Deal call is open and published on https://ec.europa.eu/info/research-and-innovation/strategy/european-green-deal/.