The UPC: Advancing Innovation and Cooperation in European Higher Education with Unite!

The UPC: A Key Player in Innovation and Cooperation in University Education and Research in Europe with the Unite! Alliance

Participants of the XI Unite! Dialogue gathered at the Vèrtex building of the Diagonal North Campus.

The Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya - BarcelonaTech (UPC) is one of the nine European universities that form part of the Unite! (University Network for Innovation, Technology, and Engineering) alliance. This alliance of European technological universities, supported by the European Commission, is working to build the future European Higher Education Area, funded by the Erasmus+ program as part of the European university alliances initiative.

Through Unite!, UPC and the other eight member universities are working to design and consolidate a new European university model that offers excellent education and research, addressing major current social and technological challenges. With its technological focus, Unite! is redefining the profile of future engineers, identifying the new competencies they need to acquire, emerging disciplines and fields they must master, and the most suitable teaching methodologies to achieve these goals.

In the field of research, the objective is to create collaborative spaces, share infrastructures and projects to progress more efficiently, and foster the creation of innovation ecosystems in European regions through a cooperative model.

UPC: A Key Player in Defining Unite!'s Strategic Objectives

UPC holds a prominent role in the Unite! alliance, committed to creating an international higher education space based on cooperation, innovation, and excellence. In this context, UPC’s Rector, Daniel Crespo, serves as one of the two vice presidents of the alliance, playing a crucial leadership role in developing Unite!’s vision and initiatives. This reflects UPC's strategic influence in shaping Unite!’s objectives and enhancing European education through academic excellence, innovative pedagogy, mobility, and the transformative potential of universities in their social and economic environments.

The UPC community actively participates in Unite!’s projects, with over 80 people involved across the alliance’s various working groups. These teams include students, faculty, researchers, and administrative staff who contribute their knowledge and experience to creating academic programs, promoting student mobility, and advancing innovative research.

For UPC’s Rector, Daniel Crespo, “Through the Unite! alliance, UPC is actively contributing to the design and implementation of new challenge-based learning models and the development of digital, hybrid, and in-person environments. These new environments will facilitate access for students, academic staff, and researchers to international teaching and research programs. Shaping the Unite! project to align with UPC’s values and identity is undoubtedly one of the institution’s most exciting challenges in the coming years.”

Additionally, UPC plays a crucial role in developing and managing the Unite! Seed Fund, which finances collaborative projects among partner universities. UPC stands out for its high participation in this fund, with numerous proposals submitted and projects selected for implementation. This fund promotes interdisciplinary and international collaboration, fostering the creation of new educational, research, and innovation initiatives.

According to Rector Daniel Crespo, one of the key promoters of this initiative within Unite!, “The Unite! Seed Fund is a tangible demonstration of its potential to drive projects of common interest that are also relevant to different communities. It showcases Unite!'s multidimensional approach, supporting teaching, research, innovation, and student activities.”

Furthermore, through various projects under competitive European funding calls, Unite! has strengthened as a consortium, expanding its activities, incorporating new stakeholders and research areas, and broadening the ecosystem that extends the alliance’s horizons. This has been achieved through a bottom-up approach, fostering grassroots innovation and collaboration.

UPC plays a leading role in several competitive projects, including aUPaEU, MSCA Unite! Energy, and its active participation in projects such as Greenchips-EDU and IDEM, among others.

“The new European university system must be interdisciplinary, interconnected, inclusive, digitalized, and challenge-oriented. Achieving this requires a joint effort from the nine universities that make up Unite!,” emphasizes Lourdes Reig, Vice-Rector for International Relations at UPC.