Research and innovation will integrate dimension of UNITE! European University Alliance

Contributing to the European Research Area together with the European Education Area: that is the main objective of the action launched by the European Commission’s DG RTD. In this framework, the Politecnico di Torino will coordinate the new UNITE! H2020 Project, financed by the EC for 2021-23. The project activities will promote the consolidation of UNITE! European University Alliance, which gathers PoliTO and other six universities, being among the first 17 alliances selected last year within the Erasmus+ Programme.

Througout UNITE! H2020 the Alliance will make a step forward, accepting the challenge launched by the European Commission: to develop, in synergy with its educational dimension, an integrated, shared and long-term research and innovation (R&I) strategy. Another objective is advancing, within three years, a series of pilot initiatives in the fields of Energy – with particular reference to the Green Deal – Artificial Intelligence and Industry 4.0.

The project aims at producing tangible results should be reached towards the institutional transformation and the identification of good practices for the modernization of R&I among the partner universities. To reach this objective, UNITE! H2020 will formulate an agenda of R&I shared by all the 7 involved partners, oriented to 2030, stressing the common intent of facing nowadays societal challenges. Among the other pillars of the project: the development of common policies for human capital, the sharing of research infrastructure, the strengthening of cooperation with non-academic R&I actors, the Open Science, the involvement of citizens, civil society and public authorities.

“The Politecnico has gladly welcomed the call to coordinate this project; we are pleased for this success and for the appreciation expressed by the European Commission. Several of our colleagues are already actively involved within UNITE! Alliance and we expect their number to grow over time, along with the number of students who will benefit from the Alliance. We also hope that our upcoming three-year-long work will vigorously contribute to the competitiveness of European Universities and UNITE! in particular” stated Prof. Roberto Zanino, Vice Rector for European Relations, coordinator of UNITE! H2020 and UNITE! Alliance Responsible for the Politecnico.

Each Alliance will receive up to EUR 2 million from the Horizon 2020 programme for the three-year-long pilot phase. This funding, complementing the up to EUR 5 million granted to the Alliance from the Erasmus programme and the additional funds received by several Ministries such as the Italian Ministry of Education, Universities and Research, will be crucial for the identification and subsequent implementation of broad and shared strategies.

About UNITE! European University Alliance

UNITE! – University Network for Innovation, Technology and Engineering – is one of the first 17 European University Alliances funded by the European Commission and includes TU Darmstadt (coordinator, Germany), Aalto University (Finland), Grenoble Institute of Technology (France), KTH Royal Institute of Technology (Sweden), Poltecnico di Torino (Italy), Universidade des Lisboa (Portugal) and Universitat Politécnica de Catalunya Barcelona Tech (Spain).

The UNITE! partner Universities are highly ranked in their shared focus areas - STEM, architecture and design - and all belong to the CLUSTER university network, which boasts three decades of close cooperation among its members. Together, the seven partners include 167,000 students and 36,700 graduates annually. They already cooperate closely in more than 80 EU projects and have exchanged more than 2,000 students in the last five years.