NEOLAiA students meet in France
On February 21 and 22, the NEOLAiA consortium met again for a two-day working meeting at the University of Tours, France. These face-to-face sessions, mostly dedicated to drafting the budget, were attended by more than thirty representatives among the nine member universities and external advisors. In parallel more than fifteen students from NEOLAiA universities met in-person for the first time in order to talk NEOLAiA and lay down the foundations for a Student Network. From Šiauliai State University of Applied Sciences, student Viktorija Valaitytė from the Construction study programme and Ugnė Zaveckaitė from the Social Work study programme attended meetings to share their point of view to involve students in NEOLAiA.
The workshops were organized in a hybrid form, as some more students joined the sessions on-line, and were meant to enable team-building, facilitate exchange of ideas and foster discussion. The students had a chance to share their expectations within NEOLAiA, establish roles, outline an organizational structure and general responsibilities as well as interchange best practices of the different student unions and Erasmus Student Networks from their home universities. The NEOLAiA Student Network concluded their working meetings with a presentation of their output to the rest of the consortium representatives.
According to the final conclusions the Student Network aims at being a contact point between the students and the alliance by giving students a voice and catering for their wellbeing. It is also determined to promote student opportunities within NEOLAiA and assume the advisory role and provide support in terms of mobility, financial aid, local information and sharing of experiences. The members of the Student Network also presented ideas for future collaboration and ways to involve students in NEOLAiA. They confirmed that the workshops proved to be an excellent opportunity to exchange perspectives, discuss student participation taking into account inclusion, decision-making and the future development of the alliance as well as highlight their common stand on comprehensive information sharing and transparency.
NEOLAiA is an alliance of nine young European universities from Spain, Germany, Cyprus, Sweden, the Czech Republic, Italy, Romania, France and Lithuania, outside the megapolis taking part in the European Universities Initiative. The alliance strives to tackle global challenges such as climate change, digitalization, demographics, and urbanization by empowering regions and offering excellent education and research in service to society.
Original article: https://neolaiacampus.eu/neolaia-students-meet-in-france/