Representatives of the CIVIS Alliance witness the rise of the European Universities Initiative at the biggest higher education conference of Europe: EAIE 2023

The boiling city of Rotterdam settled the tone for the 2023 edition of the EAIE (European Association for International Education. CIVIS experts from the alliance’s member-universities international offices seized the opportunity of Europe’s biggest higher education event to meet with colleagues from other European universities and disseminate our alliance’s innovative solutions and challenges in the field of international mobility and civic engagement.

The enriching discussions with friends from Una Europa, Forthem, Aurora, Eutopia, NeurotechEU, Unite! and many more alliances underscored the full commitment of European Universities Initiative actors to put the initiative on the agenda of the EAIE.

What is EAIE?
Funded in 1989, the European Association of International Education (EAIE) organize every year Europe's most comprehensive higher education event. The 2023 edition in Rotterdam gathered 6,400 professionals from 100 countries across the globe, 400 speakers in session and more than 240 exhibitors.
More information on the conference

Topic: Disseminating our CIVIS Open Labs model

The CIVIS delegation got the opportunity to present the original model of the CIVIS Open Labs during a poster session. CIVIS Open Labs connect the CIVIS European Universities Initiative alliance with local communities in all the cities and regions of our member universities. Through this session of 2 hours, the EAIE participants got the information on what the CIVIS Open Labs are, what they do and how they are governed. Manuel Alcantara and Olivier Fondanaiche, members of the CIVIS delegation illustrated the models through examples of individual projects co-created within the Open Labs and funded by the alliance and outlined the lessons learned along the way.

This meeting has been a good opportunity to exchange ideas: there has been a great interest in our Open Labs, especially from colleagues involved in other alliances – Manuel Alcantara, Coordinator of the CIVIS Open Lab of UAM

European Universities alliances share a common vision on civic engagement but we take different path to reach the milestone. This make poster sessions like this incredibly inspiring as we got the opportunity to not only share but overall learn from other models chosen by some of the alliances present in Rotterdam. – Olivier Fondanaiche, Project manager from the coordination team of CIVIS

As the event drew to a close, we can affirm that the diversity of perspectives enriched the dialogue and broadened the horizons of the members of the European Universities Initiative. The conference in Rotterdam provided a platform for the CIVIS delegation to form lasting connections for future collaboration to bring about positive transformations that will benefit the European Universities Initiative as a whole. See you in Toulouse for next year’s edition of the EAIE!