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The participants were introduced to tools, guidelines and best practices developed in the Unite! university alliance that Aalto University together with eight other European technical universities are part of. The workshop facilitators were from Aalto, KTH in Sweden and Grenoble-INP in France. 

Building a joint programme is difficult, but doable

Ferdinand Keil, head of a research group at the Integrated Electronic Systems Lab at TU Darmstadt, is currently building a joint programme on microelectronics together with six Unite! universities, companies and research institutions with the aim of training urgently needed specialists for the semiconductor industry. The consortium aims for 400 students to complete a jointly offered Bachelor’s or Master’s programme during the four-year project period.

“The staff training week on joint programmes was just a perfect fit for me. I learned what are the most prominent challenges when designing joint programmes. It is important to find a common language and agree on definitions. I also learned about accreditation, Erasmus Mundus, and about practicalities of creating such a programme. You have to assemble all these puzzle pieces of information and build your own approach out of it. Now I know it’s difficult, but it’s doable,” tells Ferdinand and continues that he strongly recommends such staff training weeks since nothing beats to meeting in person. 

Multilingual and multicultural aspects in joint programmes

The participants also explored the Unite! Policy on Multilingualism and Multiculturalism (M&M) and what should be considered when setting up courses and programmes in an international environment. The policy aims at setting the general guidelines for the university alliance to successfully create a multilingual trans-European campus. As more practical advice was needed, Unite! is now finalising a handbook to provide the alliance and all its members with ideas, tools and good practices to fully embrace our cultural diversity. 

“Although we have with English a shared language of communication, all languages and cultures of Unite! should be taken into account, valorised and really be part of our Unite! environment”, explains the workshop facilitator Sophie Belanger from Grenoble-INP who coordinates the expert group on M&M at Unite!. 

“'Being given the opportunity to exchange ideas and points of views with colleagues from various backgrounds and positions working in quite different institutions is a real learning experience. It helped us step back and look at our own context from a new perspective. The diversity of the group provided us with interesting ideas and useful comments that we all shared. Despite our diverse background we are facing very similar challenges when dealing with cultural diversity, it is  reassuring to see that we are all working towards common goals. We didn't find 'the' solution but I trust it took us a step further towards finding 'our' solution”, shares Sophie.