30.10.2024 EUPeace Leadership Visits UWB: Focus on Research and University Prestige
New research partnerships among nine European universities were a key topic during the EUPeace delegation’s visit to the University of West Bohemia (UWB), which has been a member since 2023. The Chair of the Governing Board, Evelyn Korn, expressed interest in UWB's research topics, teaching methods, and overall operations.
EUPeace brings together 9 universities from seven countries, each with its own distinct academic culture. "We don't want to assume that all nine universities work the same way or address the same research topics or educational challenges. We aim to learn from each other, which is why we founded the alliance," emphasized Evelyn Korn from Marburg University, Germany, which leads the alliance, during a meeting with the management of UWB. The meeting aimed not only to assess the first year of cooperation within the four-year project funded by the European Union but also to explore new opportunities for linking research topics and collaborative projects across the alliance.
One of the main objectives of the alliance is to establish specialized research partnerships (Research Hubs) that will focus on current global challenges. These partnerships will address topics such as climatology, global health, security, and migration. "While these names may suggest purely social science topics, that is not the case. All of them are closely linked to modern technologies, artificial intelligence, energy, and materials. Therefore, the partnerships will be interdisciplinary," explained Evelyn Korn. Additionally, vice-rectors for science and research will be newly involved in the alliance's governing bodies.
The goal of UWB is to attract as many of its Pilsen-based researchers as possible to these partnerships. UWB Rector Miroslav Lávička sees membership in the EUPeace Alliance as a long-term investment. "Membership in the alliance will help increase our visibility not only in the Czech Republic but also throughout Europe. It is important for us to continually compare ourselves with other universities, and we expect that international benchmarking of top-tier research and education, which will lead to improved prestige, will also be supported by the Czech government," he said. Evelyn Korn supported this effort, noting that some European politicians have come to believe in recent years that universities are no longer centers of innovation. According to her, this perception needs to change.
An important aspect of inter-university cooperation is also the mobility of students and academics. As the leader of the work package, UWB is responsible for facilitating mobility within the entire alliance. Romana Suchá from the International Office at UWB mentioned that the university aims to increase the number of incoming international students. "We already have over 400 outgoing exchanges per year, and student interest in spending a semester abroad has been rising again after the Covid-19 pandemic. Now we need to work on attracting international students to come here. We believe that EUPeace will help us in this effort," she said.
The importance of higher education didactics in the training of future teachers, with an emphasis on internationalization, was also discussed. The alliance plans to create examples of best practices based on existing experience and support educators in developing their own international courses.
Next September, UWB will host the EUPeace committees and commissions in Pilsen and organize a conference, with the main focus once again on joint research with an emphasis on the potential of artificial intelligence. This will be an extraordinary opportunity for UWB to showcase its own research directions and the advanced equipment of its laboratories to the other member universities.
