The EuroTech Universities join forces in Brussels
Creative commons / Amio Cajander
Sharing the excellence of the main technical universities in Europe and beyond, working together to find solutions to the challenges of our society, providing cross-border study programs – these are the goals of the EuroTech Universities Alliance, which brings together four elite technical universities in Switzerland, the Netherlands, Denmark and Germany. Today, they are opening their joint office in Brussels.
The Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), the University of Technology Eindhoven (TU/e), the Technical University of Denmark (DTU) and the Technische Universität München (TUM) – these institutions are all leading centers of technical education. Together they form the EuroTech Universities Alliance, whose shared mission is to develop technically sound solutions to the major challenges of our society: energy, food, health, communication and mobility.
The partners have a shared vision: They want to join forces to create, in the fields of engineering and technology, the strongest and most innovative research and teaching programs in Europe. Together, the EuroTech Universities will initiate large-scale, long-term projects that will generate new cross-border capacities. At the same time, they will offer transnational study programs at all levels, from Bachelor to Master to PhD, along with summer courses as well as student and scholar exchange programs. In order to implement the results of research in the form of manufacturing processes and marketable products, each university has strong partnerships with leading industrial and business organizations.
The EuroTech Universities bring together research, education and technology transfer for the first time under one roof, in a cross-border approach that is quite unique in Europe. The first project they will undertake this year is the “GreenTech initiative” in which each partner will invest one million euros for the development of environmentally friendly technologies.
By being built upon significant, "bottom-up" cooperative actions and programmes, established through existing relations between the researchers across the Alliance, the Brussels office will have a uniquely legitimate and informed basis in helping to shape EU research and innovation policies. Also the EuroTech Universities will be promoting dialogue between different sectors of society. In addition, they aim to encourage and enhance the professionalization of science management.
The office of the EuroTech Universities Alliance, which opens today in Brussels, will play a key role in this regard. Each partner university will have a representative at the office to serve as a contact person for his or her institution. The joint interests of the EuroTech Universities in relation to the European Union will be represented by Dr. Andrew Sors, a British materials scientist who has many years of experience in European research and technology policy. He has held several positions within the European Commission, including Head of a DG Research and Innovation Unit as well as the Commission’s science counselor in India. He has also served as Rector of the Collegium Budapest Institute for Advanced Study.