What is NEOLAiA?
NEOLAiA is an European University Alliance of 9 young universities from small and medium size cities in different European countries: Spain, France, Germany, Sweden, Lithuania, Czechia, Romania, Italy and Cyprus.
NEOLAiA is transforming regional connectivity by embracing:
- Digital trasformation
- Diversity and inclusion
- Enhanced mobility
Our nature
Most members of the European Union are living in small and medium-sized cities or in the countryside. So, as young universities with the power and commitment to reform, we are the most important drivers of innovation and social change, in our regions.
Global challenges such as climate change, digitalization, demographics, and urbanization are the Global Challenges of our time. They affect metropolises and regions differently. Global Challenges fuel growing populism, worries and the call for authoritarian structures, especially outside capitals. The regions beyond the metropolises are the places where Europe’s future is negotiated on a daily basis as an opportunity and as a challenge.
NEOLAiA makes Europe an experience. Our students are first generation academics, often with a migrant background within their family. They are ambitious, they are diverse, and they are talented. Our societies and the future of the European Union need their potential.
NEOLAiA wants to raise the potential of our regions. Empowering regions means strengthening democracy, preventing populism, fostering inclusion, exploiting the potential of heterogeneity, countering extremism, and making excellent research and teaching an everyday experience.
Vision
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The NEOLAiA alliance is designed to achieve ambitious goals reaching to 2030 when we see ourselves as:
- A strong, highly integrated European University representing a main stay of European values and high-quality education for all the member university regions.
- An open and inclusive educational and social environment, fostering equity at university and in European society at large, ensuring that the diverse communities within academia and in the regions feel connected and committed to work together to face the global challenges and find solutions to common concerns such as Global Health to improve wellbeing
for all. - A model international educator motivating widening cohorts of students to engage in innovative research-informed and socially relevant study programmes crossing the borders of disciplines, research areas, countries and cultures, keeping pace with the digitalization of teaching and learning and at the same time cherishing personal contact and a tailor made approach.
Mission
Enhance regional connectivity to prevent populism through innovation in academic mobility. Internationalisation and academic exchange are key for a cosmopolitan worldview that reacts against nationalistic and populist tensions. NEOLAiA will develop a series of mobility and multicultural initiatives that will expand on traditional exchange programmes and lead to a seamlessly integrated alliance of international universities.
Strengthen inclusion and interculturalism, through common standards against barriers to participation by underrepresented groups. Inclusive societies embrace diversity as a contribution to economic and social development. NEOLAiA will be shaped by principles of widening participation and inclusion, driven by the concept of equity in education and research. It will create standards, policies, training and certification on diversity & inclusion (D&I) and plurilingual education. In addition, a strong focus on the societal engagement for D&I through open events will benefit the intercultural awareness of its academic community and societies in the largely diverse populations of the NEOLAiA non-metropolitan regions.
Increasing research impact at a regional scale through higher scientific output by building on existing regional specialization strengths and on knowledge transfer (open science). Research and scientific output with real impact in regional development will be boosted with a smart specialization strategy based on existing regional research capacity and strengths as found on NEOALAiA’s needs analysis survey (bibliometric research, in section 1.1.4, also in the annex section) on specialisation areas that point to NEOLAiA’s 3 key pillars and the NEOLAiA Key Application Area of Global Health). NEOLAiA’s actions will apply digital access to research by mapping synergies and resources among partners to increase:
a) the number of peer-reviewed scientific reports in high-quality channels;
b) the diversity of concrete solutions at a regional scale in applying research for regional development, and
c) the capacity for knowledge transfer (open science) to society.
Increasing regional output in terms of entrepreneurial training, product ideation, start-up support and incubation. Universities play a key role in regional economic development by bridging education, research, knowledge transfer and economic output.
NEOLAiA will benefit academic communities and society at large in non-metropolitan regions with new educational infrastructures that support the transfer of ideas to production, contributing to the regional and economic development of its partners.
Increasing the number and scope of joint teaching and learning programmes to address identified Shared Challenges (SC) through regional collaboration. NEOLAiA will develop common teaching and learning standards and increase the number of double/multiple and ulterior joint study programmes, in alignment with a “European space of learning” rooted in regional and diverse points of view.
OUR PILLARS
The 3 main pillars of the project:
Digital Transformation
Through its positive impact on sustainable connectivity and socio-economic development at a regional scale.
Diversity and inclusion
Through its positive impact of D&I policies in European populations and underrepresented groups.
Enhanced Mobility
Through its positive impact on cultural and social inclusiveness for a shared European citizenship against populistic tensions.
WHERE WE ARE
NEOLAiA is a close-knit alliance of nine young, dynamically developing higher education institutions based in small and mid-sized cities in the regions beyond metropolises:
- Bielefeld University(Germany)
- University of Jaén (Spain)
- University of Nicosia (Cyprus)
- Örebro University (Sweden)
- University of Ostrava (Czech Republic)
- University of Salerno (Italy)