Education

The EPICUR university of tomorrow will be:

• Physical, virtual and blended, encouraging the free movement of students and staff
• Multilingual, inclusive and connected to the European Union and its regions
• Innovative teaching and learning methods on our connected campuses
• Innovative in research activities, encouraging academics and students to explore new topics and areas
• Based on a light and confident governance to ensure a long-term sustainable collaboration

EPICUR is a place where all boundlessly mobile students, doctoral candidates and staff can acquire a broad, interdisciplinary, academic perspective strongly rooted in European traditions, irrespective of their nationality, mother tongue, cultural or socio-economic background.

According to EPICUR, Education is part of our knowledge-square with Research, Business and Society.

EPICUR fosters university community involvement and appropriation of the alliance through future annual forums, ambassador programmes, challenges and festivals.

New forms of mobility and new opportunities:

EPICUR’s main objective is to promote mobility to all and in all shapes. Thanks to our collaboration, we will encourage our staff and students to engage in mobility that can be physical through a short term or long term stay abroad or can also be virtual thanks to our digital tools.
We also encourage blended mobility which mobilises the two techniques and shows how connected the regions can be.

Virtual Campus

The creation of the EPICUR virtual campus will include the establishment of virtual Inter-University courses. These pilot courses are designed by lecturers based at EPICUR universities and will initially be accessible to EPICUR students. One of the innovative elements of these courses is the introduction of EPICUR ‘mobility credits’ that can be transferred to ECTS credits granted by EPICUR universities.

Multilingualism

Mobility programs will be one of the actions to promote multilingualism in order to promote the fact that new generations of Europeans will be able to speak at least two languages in addition to their own. Our efforts to foster an inclusive language governance will include the combination of our programmes concerning “small” languages and they will be closely connected to diversity in education and training by integrating intercultural competencies into our curricula.
EPICUR is planning to develop a virtual module for language programmes that facilitates active engagement and (virtual) interactions across the EPICUR student body.

Innovation Thinking

EPICUR will work on developing innovative, student-centred teaching & learning models by deploying approaches and didactic concepts from the Liberal Arts & Sciences (LAS) teaching philosophy.

Liberal Arts & Sciences (LAS) programmes are interdisciplinary by nature, challenge-based and are characterised by a high degree of autonomy for students. These models will include new course offers that are suitable for implementation in the context of other (non-LAS) degree programmes at EPICUR members.

Research

Research is one part of the knowledge-square of EPICUR. EPICUR fosters research initiatives and creates new opportunities for its students and researchers.

For instance, PhD students will be able to do research internships at the partners or at research institutes outside of their university. An 8-week pilot will be held at KIT.
These internships are custom-tailored to each researcher, include access to specific research infrastructures, and aim at generating joint research projects.

In 3 years, EPICUR will have set up the foundation for a European University through the development of pilot innovative solutions.
EPICUR wants to connect the diverse innovation ecosystems and promote entrepreneurial thinking among students through student entrepreneurial labs.
The Master labs address advanced Master students who pursue a career in research and intend to continue with a PhD project. Transdisciplinary, research-oriented teaching in blended-learning courses will include the partners and research institutes outside of university.
We strongly believe in the added value of crossing barriers between countries, disciplines, languages, research and teaching, and in joining forces where similar values and objectives are set.

EPICUR will bring students, teachers and researchers together in its campuses which are firmly embedded in their local communities. EPICUR will provide academic training aimed at preparing new generations of Europeans for a career in a fast-moving society that continuously brings new challenges.

AMBASSADOR’S PROGRAMME, CHALLENGE AND FESTIVAL 

EPICUR will also launch its Ambassador’s Programme which will intend to contribute to both the dissemination and sustainability of the project’s results.
Our first pilot action is to create an Ambassadors’ network, as a means to communicate on the European University and to promote it within the campus.
The Ambassadors can be students and/or staff members of the alliance and they must have had a mobility experience within the EPICUR alliance. They have a 12-month mandate, renewable for the duration of the project. Their missions will be to represent EPICUR in their home universities, to raise diversity and awareness about the project, both by creating and organising innovative actions. For instance, Ambassadors will have to organise or participate in 4 actions per year and in the European University forum.
During the 1^st Forum, a Challenge will be organised, and during the 2^nd Forum, a Festival will be hold.

The Ambassadors’ Programme, the Challenge and the Festival will give students and staff the opportunity to develop both their entrepreneurial skills and create community engagement around the EPICUR university project.