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The second 2021 Steering Committee of CLUSTER was held in hybrid format at Université Catholique de Louvain (UCLouvain) in Louvain-la-Neuve from 29^th to 30^th of October. Finally CLUSTER representatives and members were able to see each other again and spend time together on and off meetings such as enjoying a visit of Hergé’s (author of Tintin) Museum .

Since the previous SC, the new Working Group (WG) on the relationships between African universities and CLUSTER was created and five meetings were held. The existing WGs have also met regularly in this period. Outcomes were presented such as the one from the WG on sustainable development (SD) in engineering programs with the creation of a dedicated webpage (https://cluster.org/students/sd-programmes/) referencing the SD policies and courses offer of each CLUSTER member.

Current and upcoming activities of the Consortium were intensively discussed during the Steering Committee such as the students’ implication in the network with the idea to launch an event for CLUSTER students and the role & admission of associate members.

The announcement of candidacy for the upcoming CLUSTER presidency 2022-2024 was made by Rector Luc Sels from KU Leuven and will be decided by a vote on the next General Assembly.

The next Steering Committee and the annual General Assembly will be held at Grenoble INP-UGA in Grenoble from 2^nd to 3^rd of March 2022.

What is the Global Future Skills Project?

The Global Future Skills Project is seeking for contributions of your visionary and Future Skills-based higher education programs, courses and teaching & learning concepts built around supporting students’ Future Skills development.

In a world which is changing faster than ever before, it has never been more urgent to actively shape this global transformation in order to create the best possible future. Today’s students need to learn the necessary skills for this – Future Skills. The challenge of promoting them is one of the currently most debated challenges for higher education institutions all over the world. The Global Future Skills Project intends to build the first global entry point to access visionary higher education programs aiming at future skills for their graduates. This will be achieved through a) a video-based web portal portraying good practices and b) through an academic book publication. The project aims at increasing visibility for existing and emerging innovative teaching and learning practices, connecting educational innovators and promoting peer learning. Please contact us to contribute a book chapter in this upcoming globally leading Springer Publication.

Button: Submit your program here!

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdB1B986MoOJsyUGcXMyldAEpCbw0X6CG2w0nfLJVVy281bqg/viewform

Future Skills? Future Skills are Skills which enable students to collectively impact societal transformation in order to create more sustainable futures. The Future Skills concept is based on educational research, comprises 17 skills profiles and represents a strong alternative vision of higher education. Throughout the past decade, the NextEducation research group has established an internationally unique and broad insight into the theory and conceptualization of Future Skills as a model for Future Higher Education (for more information: www.nextskills.org).

Global? The Global Future Skills Project aims to look for exemplary programs in the field of higher education. It seeks to cover approaches from all six continents and elicit ground-breaking and visionary future education programs. In a high-level peer-reviewed academic publication, the authors will explain in-depth their approach, methods, experiences and evidence of their selected good-practice Future Skill programs. The book will be published by “Springer” in the Series “Future Higher Education” as an open access publication, without any costs for authors.

Observatory? In addition, a global observatory website will be set up where good practice programs will be presented. In order to allow a maximum of peer learning, a short presentation video will be produced for each example and disseminated through the website. With the dedicated website and book publication, the project will support Global Future Skills Education in different contexts by inciting reflection on and assessment of Future Skills within a global milestone research publication.

What are we looking for?

We are seeking for visionary and Future Skills-based higher education programs, courses and teaching & learning concepts built around supporting students’ Future Skills development. Future Skills are understood as skills enabling graduates to act as transformative agents in emergent developments in organizations, societies and the world as a whole. We therefore seek book chapters on:
• teaching and learning concepts in higher education that are currently being implemented or have already been implemented.
• individual projects, course, study programs or holistic general teaching concepts, also but not limited to cooperation with corporate and civil society actors
• A new vision of higher education and the development of students’ Future Skills as well as its teaching-learning approach should be central

Who takes the initiative?

The „Global Future Skills Project“ is initiated by two globally leading universities: The Baden-Wuerttemberg Cooperative State University (DHBW) (www.dhbw.de) and the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) (www.kit.edu) in Germany. An expert team from both institutions is cooperating on the implementation of the global initiative, led by Prof. Dr. Ulf-Daniel Ehlers, Professor of Education Management and Lifelong Learning at DHBW, Head of NextEducation Research Group (www.next-education.org) and initiator of the groundbreaking NextSkills study (www.nextskills.org) in cooperation with Dr. Michael Stolle, Managing Director of KIT’s House of Competence.

Contact us for further information!

• Please contact us via global@nextskills.org for all project-related questions!
• Project website: https://nextskills.org/globalfutureskills
• Information on the Future Skills concept and research: https://www.nextskills.org/
• NextEducation research team: https://next-education.org/
• House of Competence: https://www.hoc.kit.edu/

The first 2021 Steering Committee (SC) together with the annual General Assembly of CLUSTER was held virtually at KTH, Stockholm from 18th to 19th of March.

Since the previous SC, the newly created Working Groups on sustainable development in engineering programs and on the European Universities Alliances have met twice. The existing Working Groups have also been actively working during this time span and their activities were reported.

The main focus of discussion was the relationship between the CLUSTER network and future partners outside of Europe such as African universities. For this matter the role & admission of associate members is planned to be re-discussed and the creation of a new Working Group about relations with Africa was decided.

Current and upcoming activities of the Consortium were intensively discussed during the General Assembly such as the idea of creating a side event at COP26 to present CLUSTER activities, of giving the Industrial Engineering and Management department a new strategy, of celebrating the 30th anniversary in 2022. The students’ implication in the network CLUSTER SC and the future agreement for the SEEEP doctoral training program with China were among the important subjects of this General Assembly.

The next Steering Committee will be held at Université Catholique de Louvain, Belgium, from 28th to 29th of October 2021.

Tomsk Polytechnic University, a CLUSTER associate member, launches the international competition of student projects for innovative greenhouse complexes in urban environment – Urban Greenhouse Challenge: Reforest. The competition is held as part of the celebration of the 125th anniversary of Tomsk Polytechnic University and will take place from October 2020 to June 2021.

It is the first time when a Russian university takes over the baton from the Dutch academic partners and opens the Urban Greenhouse Challenge: Reforest. Tomsk Polytechnic University is delighted to invite the students and the experts of all CLUSTER universities to participate in the competition and contribute to the rapid reforestation. Prize fund is $10 000.

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Challenge will be held online.

Learn more on the website reforest.tpu.ru.

The registration is open until 28 February 2021.