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CLUSTER has joined efforts with more than a dozen European organizations to call for an ambitious Horizon Europe budget that would invest in excellent, cross-border research and innovation (R&I). This investment is essential to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals and to build a prosperous future for European society.

The 15 associations call on the EU Institutions and national policy makers to strengthen R&I investment at European level (see attached document). They urge them to raise the budget of the next EU Program for R&I (2021-2027), Horizon Europe, to at least €120 billion. Even though a greater amount would be needed to solve the big challenges mentioned above and match the program’s ambitions, this commitment would give the right signal to boost public and private R&I investment in Europe.

The joint effort must be reinforced to achieve the transformation that Europe needs, in order to build a prosperous, safe, inclusive and sustainable future for the next generations. The EU Leaders have recognised this necessity during the Sibiu Summit, committing to stay united and build a Union fit for the future with the means to match these ambitions.

The Call is open to receive support by organizations at national and European levels. We believe that the more organizations and institutions would adhere to these principles, the more likely our leaders at EU-level and in national contexts will be in a strong position to promote a higher budget for R&I.

CLUSTER highly encourages its members to sign the Call and to further disseminate it in their community of contacts to gather as many supporting organizations as possible to achieve an adequate budget for R&I.

CLUSTER Universities were successful in applying for the “Erasmus + Strategic Partnerships in Higher Education” fund with the project “InComm – Feel at Home.” InComm focuses on the transitional period for international Master’s and phD students upon their entry into their studies, seeking to study and optimize the first 3 months for these students before and after their enrolment at a university. One of the goals of the project is to develop and implement a “customer journey” for Master’s and PhD students starting from 3 months before matriculation and 3 months after entry, and to facilitate a “feel at home” environment to improve student excellence and promote internationalization.

The coordinator of the project is KTH Stockholm (Sweden) in co-coordination with TU Eindhoven (the Netherlands); other partner universities include), Universidade de Lisboa (Portugal), TU Darmstadt (Germany), Universitat de Cataluna (Spain), and TU Graz (Austria, outside the CLUSTER consortium). The CLUSTER strategic university network will serve the InComm project by providing an organisational framework. The project will officially start for all partners with a kick-off meeting in Eindhoven in October of 2019, and the funding period for the project will end in August 2022.

In 2017, French President Macron launched an initiative to create 20 European universities by 2025. This initiative would allow for universities to apply for fundings and create integrated alliances for cooperation in research and study. In June of 2019, 10 out of 13 CLUSTER institutions were awarded the title of “European University.” Among these 10 institutions, 7 are involved in the UNITE! Alliance.

UNITE! (University Network for Innovation, Technology, and Engineering) is an alliance coordinated by TU Darmstadt involving CLUSTER partners KTH Stockholm, Aalto University, INP Grenoble, UPC Barcelona, Politecnico di Torino, and University of Lisbon (IST). The goal of the alliance is to create a trans-European campus, extending from Finland to Portugal, for students and scholars with trans-European courses of study, scientific cooperation in teaching and research, and transnational knowledge transfer.

In addition to UNITE! we would also like to congratulate CLUSTER partners KU Leuven, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, and Trinity College Dublin for their successes in receiving recognition as “European Universities” through their respective alliances UNA Europa, EPICUR, and CHARM European University. All European University alliances with participation of CLUSTER members aim to not only foster transnational research and study but also provide a multidisciplinary and multicultural educational environments and will receive five million euros from the EU for the first three years.

For more information about the initiative please refer to the following website of the European Commission.

On behalf of Aalto University, a strategic partner of the Millennium Technology prize and Technology Academy Finland TAF, we encourage your organization to nominate candidates for the 2020 Millennium Technology Prize.

The Millennium Technology Prize is a prize of one million euros and awarded every two years by the TAF to an individual or to a team from any country, established by the Government of Finland, academic institutions, and high-tech industries in 2004. The patron of the Prize is the President of the Republic of Finland. The Prize will be awarded on 26 May 2020.

The Millennium Technology Prize highlights the impact of scientific innovations for the well-being of humanity and is awarded for groundbreaking technological innovations. To this day, three winners of the prize – Frances Arnold, Shinya Yamanaka and Shuji Nakamura – have gone on to become Nobel Laureates. A list of all former Millennium Technology Prize Winners is available at https://taf.fi/millennium-technology-prize/winners/.

Nominations for the 2020 Millennium Technology Prize will be accepted until 31 July 2019 at www.millenniumprize.fi/cfn, and are invited from organizations around the world and from all fields of technology, excluding military technology. Special emphasis is placed on proposals relating to:

• energy and environment
• life sciences, including health and food
• information and communications technology and smart systems
• new materials, processes and manufacturing

For further information on the Millennium Technology Prize and the nomination process, please visit www.millenniumprize.fi/cfn. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact the CEO, Ari Ahonen (ari.ahonen@taf.fi) or COO Eeva Sievi (eeva.sievi@taf.fi) of the Technology Academy Finland TAF.

For information on Aalto University’s partnership with the Millennium Technology Prize:

Annukka Jyrämä
Senior advisor, PhD, Docent
Aalto University, Research Services
Research ethics and Integrity
Technology Academy Finland –relationship

Tel. +358-50373 2-238
annuka.jyrama@aalto.fi

The CLUSTER Consortium hosted students from all member universities at a second CLUSTER student representatives’ meeting in Barcelona from 4th to 5th July. The students in attendance discussed the organizational structure for their meetings and developed projects about future/new CLUSTER initiatives. More specifically, they considered the formation of a student council with a board and the development of an intensive 2-week  ‘CLUSTER course’ to target the student interest and engagement

All in all, this was a great opportunity for students to meet again with like-minded peers and to exchange experiences and ideas about international university education.

Aalto University is excited to share a great opportunity for students to learn entrepreneurship in Finland
this summer!

Experience a unique summer course, where students from around the world come together to learn how
to create immersive, multidimensional experiences. During three weeks of magical Finnish summer,
students will use an iterative process to go from an idea to a prototype, learning by doing, while getting to
know and understand the globally renowned startup culture in Helsinki.
For more information, please see links below.

Course website: https://avp.aalto.fi/avp-summer-school/
Summer school video: https://www.youtube.com/
Aalto Ventures Program FB: https://www.facebook.com/aaltoventuresprogram

Students can apply until 31st May via this registration form . If you are willing to send a group of students of five or more, please request group pricing from Ilja Riekki, Head of International Relations, Aalto Ventures Program : ilja.riekki@aalto.fi. You can also schedule a skype call with Ilja, if Aalto University or Aalto Ventures Program are new entities for you.

The EUCRITE project Consortium (European Center for Refugee Integration in Higher Education, www.eucrite.eu ) is pleased to invite you to the Staff Training Event taking place at the Technische Universität Darmstadt from Monday June 17^th to Wednesday June 19^th 2019.

The Staff Training Week is open to international relations professionals, administrative staff from the EUCRITE – European Centre for Refugee Integration in Higher Education – universities as well as staff members from CLUSTER.

The main objective of the training is to provide administrative staff with a set of tools to improve the work with perspective and returning refugee students and enhance inclusion in HEI across Europe.

For further details about the event and the registration please visit the project website.

We are looking forward to receive your registrations until April 22^nd. A participation is only possible for staff being able to be present all three days. Please keep in mind that Thursday, June 20^th is a national holiday in Germany, therefore we encourage you to make travel arrangements as soon as possible.