CIVIS was built by eight civic European universities on civic values such as inclusiveness, social equity and solidarity with the purpose to assume its social responsibility towards the future generations for the benefit of the European community. All CIVIS member universities are fueled with the mission to serve their local community and actively contribute to the social, cultural and economical dynamism of their ecosystem. The CIVIS alliance aims to reinforce its civic identity and activity through collaboration at the European level.
As a European Civic University, we take the global health situation with COVID-19 very seriously. To face the Coronavirus disease, our CIVIS member universities have organised many initiatives and solidarity actions to better help our communities.
Reach out to us on our Social Media channels if you wish to take part in the initiatives taking place in your city. 
CIVIC initiatives and solidarity actions run by our universities
This section will be regularly updated with new civic actions.
Aix-Marseille université
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"Les Rendez-vous Sport AMU" on Facebook home sessions proposed by the faculty of physical education and sports
Get some physical activity! Videos are now available on Aix-Marseille University's Facebook account with dedicated "rendez-vous Sport" pages offering live meetings. Yoga, pilates, cardio, abdo/buttocks classes and many more activities are available throughout the week to keep you moving from home!
https://www.facebook.com/aixmarseilleuniversite/?ref=bookmarks
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Aid for isolated students
Aix-Marseille université sent a medico-social survey to its students to check if they were in need of assistance. Over 25,000 students replied which is being evaluated by Aix-Marseille Université teams to provide adequate assistance. While nearly 3,250 students are confined to "Cité U" or university residences in Aix-Marseille Université, almost 3,000 students asked to be contacted by telephone by a professional from SIUMPPS, CROUS or BVE-mission handicap, as proposed in the survey. Alongside doctors, psychologists and social workers, "health relay students" will contribute to this telephone and teleconsultation service. Also, on Friday 27th March, over 80 Luminy students confined in their university rooms received a packed lunch and a hygiene kit distributed by an association. The university is now working with 5 other food aid charities and supermarket chains, together with the support of the student union organisations and the CROUS, the regional affiliate of the French national student service agency.
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Provision of premises in Aix-Marseille Université for the manufacture of hydroalcoholic gels
Last week, a faculty of Aix-Marseille Université opened its doors to the Marseilles Marine Fire Battalion (BMPM) and the Departmental Fire and Rescue Service (SDIS13) to use the practice rooms to prepare 1600 litres of hydro-alcoholic gels, ensuring the health safety of their teams. New requests for new uses have already been registered.
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Aix-Marseille Université provides 3D printers for the production of visors for the benefit of AP-HM's carers
A call on social networks this weekend helped to consolidate and extend an aid from Aix-Marseille Université to the AP-HM, for the benefit of healthcare workers who are on the front line in the fight against the COVID-19. Thanks to some fifty 3D printers coming from forty laboratories, training departments and industrial partners, we can design simple and effective protective visors, stamped AMU. A hundred visors can now be manufactured every day. We are going to gather in a single point, on each site, the 3D printers mobilized in order to optimize the production of the visors and their delivery to the hospital. These production sites have been chosen based on the number of printers available and the proximity to hospitals. https://twitter.com/univamu
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Donation of medical supplies and equipment to the Aix-Marseille University hospital care teams
Since the very beginning of the crisis, Aix-Marseille Université has been organising a gathering of many medical equipment from its research laboratories and science departments (AMU-INSERM-CNRS). After verification of the relevance of the materials, Aix-Marseille université has organised their transfer to the care teams of its university hospital. More than 207,900 hospital supplies and equipment have been donated, including more than 21,000 masks and 173,000 pairs of gloves.
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The Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region together with its regional universities have built an emergency fund for the repatriation of students living abroad - Exceptional scheme
Five hundred students from the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region are still abroad for study or internship purposes and unfortunately cannot return home.
Mobilised and concerned by this situation, Aix-Marseille Université reached an agreement with the President of the Region Sud and the three other presidents of the region's universities (the University of Toulon, the University of Avignon and the University of the Côte d'Azur), in order to facilitate and finance, with a dedicated emergency fund, the repatriation of those students who wish to do so. This exceptional scheme provides for financial aid of 500 euros for each student wishing to be repatriated.
https://www.univ-amu.fr/en/public/actualites/covid-19-repatriation-students-abroad-exceptional-scheme
University of Bucharest
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Free online courses for teachers
The University of Bucharest offers a free course dedicated to helping primary and secondary teachers to adapt to the challenges of moving their teaching activities to a digital version, following the closing of schools due to COVID 19 Pandemia. The course is offered by the Teacher Training Department from the Faculty of Psychology and Education Sciences.
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Scientists created statistical modelling of the first 18 days of COVID-19 in the country
The research group on graphs and social networks (GraphNets) has released statistical modelling of the spreading of COVID-19 for the first 109 cases in Romania, offering the authorities and the media important information about the impact and the development of the coronavirus pandemic. The researchers, members of the Faculty of Sociology and Social Work, have worked on public data, voluntarily.
Université libre de Bruxelles
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Students design medical protective clothing for healthcare staff
To respond to the shortage of medical protective clothes, two students and a young engineer graduated from ULB are working day and night at the University's FabLab (open lab) to design protective clothing for hospital staff.
https://www.ulb.be/fr/mecenat/appel-special-covid-19-ulb
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Online platform compiling a list of solidarity actions you can get involved in
In a context where hospitals are extremely busy and many people find themselves isolated, the Université libre de Bruxelles and its partner Give a Day have created a web platform to facilitate solidarity actions.
https://www.impactdays.be/ulbengageecoronasolidarite/
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Online activities for teachers and kids
A page for parents and teachers with online resources. This page is intended to help parents to animate daily life at home with children and teenagers, nowadays in confinement. Activities to learn from 6 to 18 years old (but it is an opportunity for parents to review many subjects long-forgotten), Something to learn about the Coronavirus, And above all, something to have fun with and to move around with!
https://www.ulb.be/fr/l-ulb-et-l-ecole/activites
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Live Q&A for university teaching staff
Live Q&A for university teaching staff on sharing the best online teaching practices (in French).
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Masks manufacturing by ULB's FabLab
The Fab-Lab of ULB a digital fabrication laboratory and UHC St-Pierre are working hand in hand to create complementary protection for healthcare personnel. One hundred and forty protective visors have already been distributed on 23/03/20 at CHU-Saint-Pierre. Since then, the production rate has risen to 600 masks per day and the first objective of the 1500 masks requested by the CHU Saint Pierre will be reached on 26/03/2020.
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ULB's COVID-19 volunteers
ULB has launched a special call to health sciences students, who already have some hands-on training, to sign up to be a volunteer to help alleviate the hospital and nursing staff's workload.
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Fundraising campaign for COVID-19 outbreak
The Erasme Funds and Fondation ULB are calling for donations to act in the best possible way in the field and finance ambitious research programmes.
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Psychological support for students and staff
The Mental Health Service at ULB (SSM-ULB) organises stand-by duty for crises and the follow-up of its patients, on its 3 sites (Psycampus, La Plaine, the Guidance centre). The SSM-ULB gives priority to video conferencing consultations but will meet with patients if the situation requires it and if a meeting seems to be able to provide adequate and sufficient help.
https://actus.ulb.be/fr/actus/q-and-a-coronavirus-covid-19
Universidad Autónoma de Madrid
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Voluntary work from UAM researchers to help tackle the coronavirus disease.
46 researchers from UAM have joined an initiative to provide the Spanish public health system with their voluntary work to fight coronavirus. 30 of them expressed that they are willing to commute to other locations within the Madrid Autonomous Community to provide those services if needed. In addition, UAM has offered 6 research laboratories to perform real-time RT-PCR for diagnosis of COVID-19 infection.
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Donation of medical supplies and equipment from the GSK-UAM Chair (The foundation Cátedra Respira Vida GSK-UAM)
The GSK-UAM Chair has donated over 3,000 disposable gowns, 1,500 overalls, 49,500 gloves, 3,260 respiratory protectors and 1,120 disposable medical clothing to its university hospital La Princesa.
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The Faculty of Psychology launches the support network 'Educamos contigo'
Students and specialized staff in Educational Psychology and Education have joined forces to give psychoeducational advice to families, teachers and students during the confinement by Covid-19.
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Free psychological care service to help cope with confinement
A team of psychologists from the Center for Applied Psychology are devoting their time from all those who feel that the situation generated by COVID-19 overwhelms them or excessively interferes with their daily lives.
https://covid-19.uam.es/cpa-telefono-covid/
Sapienza University of Rome
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Fundraising for Coronavirus emergency
Sapienza University of Rome, together with Fondazione Roma Sapienza, is launching a fundraising campaign to help deal with the current emergency. We exhorted the whole academic community to support the growing needs of our university hospitals that these days have been working under increasing pressure. People can donate via bank transfer to Fondazione Roma Sapienza. Fondazione will then allocate the proceeds to the university hospitals connected with Sapienza University of Rome.
https://www.uniroma1.it/en/notizia/fundraising-coronavirus-emergency
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Online psychological counselling for Sapienza and Erasmus + students
Sapienza students and those who are currently studying abroad and temporarily unable to come back can e-mail clinical psychologists and psychotherapists at centrocounselling.psicologico@uniroma1.it. Students can ask for psychological help and, if needed, arrange online sessions.
https://www.uniroma1.it/en/pagina/psychological-counselling
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Home workout with Sapienza Sport
SapienzaSport Centre is sharing a few videos made by our coaches and trainers, with the Sapienza community. The videos show short gymnastic activities and floor exercises, easy to do at home during these days of isolation. At such an exceptional time, our habits are completely revolutionized; SapienzaSport Centre's videos provide a service aimed at our physical and, most importantly, psychological well being. It is a way to abide by the authorities instructions and avoid outdoor activities that risk violating the national lockdown.
https://www.uniroma1.it/en/notizia/home-workout-sapienza-sport
Stockholm University
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Tips to study, teach and work online
Stockholm University offers tips, advice and online tools to university teachers, students and everyone to better teach, study and work online.
https://www.su.se/english/coronavirus/study-teach-and-work-online-1.491724
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Stockholm University chemists mix hand sanitiser for current health care needs
Over 12,700 litres of newly produced hand sanitiser, plastic gloves, face masks and other items in high demand comprises the first consignment of disposable items, assembled by chemists at Stockholm University to be delivered to hospitals to help meet current urgent healthcare needs in the wake of the spread of COVID-19.
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Stockholm University sent boxes of overhead transparencies to Stockholm-area hospitals
Faculties from Stockholm University have collected over 1,000 transparency sheets for use as visors to help meeting Stockholm hospitals’ needs for materials for protective equipment against the coronavirus.
University of Tübingen
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Video training program to do at home
The Institute of Sports Science of the University and the Department of Sports Medicine of the University Hospital have developed a video training program with small exercise units to do at home. The exercises are mainly aimed at older people who cannot do any sports in the current situation, but they are also recommended for younger people.
https://www.medizin.uni-tuebingen.de/sportmedizin/index.php?id=trz_va
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Crisis helpline
The University Hospital Tübingen's Center for Mental Health has set up a crisis helpline for all those affected. It offers advice on fears and other effects on mental health associated with the coronavirus and the current situation.
https://uni-tuebingen.de/en/174363?tx_news_pi1%5Bnews%5D=50730
COVID-19: 5 ways to help prevent the spread
Video from the European Commission