General Assembly of the European University Association
On April 20, a truly landmark event took place for the Zaporizhzhia Polytechnic National University. The institution, which has been a full member of the European University Association (EUA) since 2022, voted for the EUA President and elected candidates for the Board for the period 2023-2027 at the 25th General Assembly of the association.
The candidates were nominated for approval based on the recommendations of the EUA Nomination Committee, which supervised the selection and interview process after inviting candidates. The candidates for the President were approved by the Council in October 2022, and the candidates for the Board were approved at the Council meeting in January 2023. Joseph M. Garrell, former rector of Ramon Llull University, Spain, member of the EUA board, was elected president. Zaporizhzhia Polytechnic University was represented at this prestigious event by Ruslan Kulikovsky, vice-rector for NPR and PPRU.
In addition to the elections, a number of plenary sessions and sections on individual issues were also held. Conference participants discussed the impact of universities on people and society as a whole, as well as on politics. Consideration of this heterogeneous concept allows us to explore how universities influence different communities and shape critical public policy in times of great change and, in many cases, crisis.
Through a combination of traditional and interactive sessions, participants explored different aspects of university impact. The conference format allowed for a range of topics to be explored, including: rankings, excellence and the pursuit of quality, the contribution of universities to greening and sustainability, their key role in innovation, and the experience of universities in supporting endangered scientists and higher education systems. The role of university leadership in delivering different forms of impact was also explored. Discussions went beyond narrow definitions of economic impact, and rather considered impact as a measure of a university’s responsibility to its own community and the world around it.
In addition, this year’s EUA conference fostered broad awareness and discussion of the different forms of impact universities have and their multiple roles in society.
A cross-cutting theme of the conference was support for Ukraine. One of the parallel sessions was titled «Supporting Universities in Ukraine: Opportunities for Expanding Interinstitutional Cooperation.» As the war in Ukraine is now in its second year, the focus was on finding answers to which measures to support higher education have been useful and which still need to be improved or added. What else can be done to support the country’s higher education institutions, in addition to scholarships for scholars and student internships outside Ukraine, for example, through online education. During this session, colleagues from Ukraine and Europe shared their experiences and perspectives on physical and virtual exchange and cooperation, as well as additional, new opportunities. As a result of the conference, Vice-Rector Ruslan Kulikovsky reached an agreement on the establishment and development of cooperation with partner universities.
The President of the European Commission Roberta Metzola spoke at the conference, during her speech she appealed to European universities to unite and help Ukraine.
