21 April 2023
My Unite! Experience: Representing the Unite! student community at an European level
On March 30th, Marco De Bastiani represented Unite! at a meeting organised by the Institut français d’Italie aimed at gathering different European Alliances.
On March 30th, Marco De Bastiani represented Unite! at a meeting organised by the Institut français d’Italie, along with the University of Torino, European university UNITA and the Université Franco Italienne/Università Italo Francese (UFI/UIF) aimed at gathering different European Alliances, in particular the ones counting French and Italian partners.
21/04/2023
30 European university Alliances and twice as many universities met at the University of Torino to raise awareness of all the innovative initiatives deployed in Italian and French universities in terms of education and research. Unite! partner universities Politecnico di Torino and Université Grenoble Alpes attended in representation of the alliance.
After a plenary session on European alliances with different actors of higher education and/or international relations, 4 thematic workshops were proposed:
- Workshop 1 Education -Innovative learning paths within the Alliances
- Workshop 2 Mobility - Mobility formats for the EU Inter-university ‘campus’
- Workshop 3 R&I - R&I and entrepreneurship for the local ecosystems
- Workshop 4 Students - Student’s engagement in EU Universities
Unite! led the fourth workshop on student engagement which was chaired by Constance Chevallier Govers, associate professor of Law and in charge of internationalisation at Université Grenoble Alpes. During the workshop most students highlighted the importance of student representation in decision-making bodies. In our case, they explained how necessary SURE! is for enhancing students’ cooperation, not only for the sake of creating a network, but also to help the communities in their work. They also presented the current educational offer they benefit from and Unite!’s most recent initiatives, namely Seed Fund and the Student Festival in Lisbon.
Marco De Bastiani, a PhD student at Politecnico di Torino involved in the Unite! expert community dedicated to doctoral education, explains his experience as one of the students involved in the Student’s engagement in EU Universities workshop.
From your point of view, what is the advantage of working at a Unite! university?
One of the greatest advantages of working at the university is the chance of travelling a lot and meeting people from all over the world, in order to share knowledge and expertise. Working in a Unite! university strongly enhances this opportunity, facilitating the international collaborations between the partners and creating a tangible university network. This also enriches research activities, thanks to the smooth sharing of expertise between partner universities.
Briefly describe the activity you were involved in
Thanks to Unite! I had the chance to take part to a workshop dedicated to students engagement in EU universities hosted by Università di Torino on March 30th, 2023. The workshop, organized by UNITA Alliance, was part of a wider event dedicated to Italian and French universities involved in the European University Initiative.
I had the chance to share my opinion on the student engagement within Unite!. Students in Unite! can be seen as a transversal figure whose engagement is realized on three levels:
- Students receiving something from the Alliance, enjoying the proposed activities
- Students organizing activities for other students, such as the Student Festival which will be held in Lisbon this summer
- Students contributing to the conception and development of Unite! activities within the various Unite! communities
What were the best aspects of this experience?
The best aspect of this experience was for sure the possibility of understanding how other Alliances in Europe work on student engagement. Listening to other Alliances representatives allowed us to collect precious information to improve student engagement within Unite! at all possible levels.