Photograph of Constance Chevallier-Govers
Image from the European Commission
Photograph of Constance Chevallier-Govers
Image from the European Commission
9 May 2022
Europe Day 2022
Photograph of Constance Chevallier-Govers
Image from the European Commission
Europe Day held on the 9th of May every year celebrates peace and unity in Europe. Coinciding with this celebration, from Unite! we reflect on the meaning of today's Europe and the role that education plays in its construction. We do so with Constance Chevallier-Govers, a Unite! member and a specialist in European law.

Europe Day held on the 9th of May every year celebrates peace and unity in Europe. The date marks the anniversary of the historic 'Schuman declaration' that set out his idea for a new form of political cooperation in Europe, which would make war between Europe's nations unthinkable. Schuman's proposal is considered to be the beginning of what is now the European Union.

Coinciding with this celebration, from Unite! we reflect on the meaning of today's Europe and the role that education plays in its construction. We do so with Constance Chevallier-Govers, a Unite! member and a specialist in European law. Her fields of research focus are on the areas of freedom, security and justice, particularly police and judicial cooperation within the European Union

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Constance Chevallier-Govers

Internationalization Project Manager within the Vice Presidency Outreach and International Relations of Université Grenoble Alpes (UGA)

Within Unite! she represents Grenoble INP-UGA in Task Force (TF) 6 on Unite! Mobility4All Students. Within this TF, Grenoble INP-UGA is in charge of TF6.6 which focuses on Internationalization at home, the purposeful integration of international and intercultural dimensions into the formal and informal curriculum for all students within domestic learning environments. Two key realisations have been achieved in this matter during the first call: the first common online Unite! hackathon: Hack@COVID and Unite! Open Badges for students and staff. 

10/03/2022

"By building European Universities we are in a way giving a new start to European integration as education can be considered a part of culture

Constance Chevallier-Govers
The European Union should continue to be an area of freedom and peace. The European Community has been initially created to prevent war on the European soil and we witness that this core goal of European integration is essential. In order to achieve this goal, the idea of the Founding Fathers was to create de facto solidarity amongst European States which started with the Common Market. We have now to extend this de facto solidarity to create a common energy community and a European Army to be able to assert European autonomy. 
At the end of his life Jean Monnet said: “If I were to do it again from scratch, I would start with culture”.
By building European Universities we are in a way giving a new start to European integration as education can be considered a part of culture. If the goal to be reached is to have European Universities with a legal status, delivering European diploma, we have to adopt the step by step functionalist method which has made Europe a reality.
Today European Universities are in fact networks of European Universities which work on their even closer integration. Thanks to concrete realizations, they will progressively become one. But this will need time and it will be successful only if European Universities and European diplomas prove to be an added value for students. This added value still needs to be demonstrated and explained. 

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