The Academic Forum of Unite! approved the creation of two vice-president positions within its governing bodies. The rector of the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya-BarcelonaTech (UPC), Daniel Crespo, and Ilkka Niemelä, rector of Aalto University, in Espoor (Finland), were elected for the positions. In the same meeting, the Academic Forum—composed of delegates, teaching staff, administrative staff and students from each member university—also elected the current president of the alliance, Tanja Brühl, rector of the University of Darmstadt (Germany), to continue serving for another three years.

The new vice-presidents will support the president in developing the strategy of the alliance. The vice-presidents will additionally support or substitute the president in official policy meetings and for media appearances.

After being elected, the rector of the UPC said that Unite!'s decision to reinforce its governing team with two new vice-presidencies “is a further sign of the will of all its members to strengthen the alliance.” According to Crespo, “enhancing the leadership of the alliance with complementary visions and voices from two of its member universities will allow Unite! to progress in its projects with a stronger and richer approach and, at the same time, will contribute to the transformation of the UPC. Therefore, as vice-president of Unite!, my commitment for the coming years is to bring the vision, knowledge and experience of our university to the governance of the alliance.”

A new stage for Unite!
The UPC is one of nine European universities that form Unite! University Network for Innovation, Technology and Engineering. Supported by the European Commission (EC), this alliance of technological universities works to push for the establishment of the future European Higher Education Area with funding from the Erasmus+ and H2020 programmes.

The current partners of the alliance are: Technical University of Darmstadt (TUDa), Aalto University (Aalto), Graz University of Technology (TU Graz), Grenoble INP Graduate School of Engineering and Management - University Grenoble Alpes (Grenoble INP-UGA), KTH Royal Institute of Technology (KTH), Politecnico Di Torino (PoliTO), Universidade de Lisboa (ULisboa), Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya-BarcelonaTech (UPC) and Wrocław University of Science and Technology (Wroclaw Tech).

The appointment of the rector of the UPC as vice-president of Unite! coincides with the start of the second funding stage after the EC announced its decision to finance the alliance for another four years through the Erasmus+ programme back in July. The funding of 14.4 million euros is a clear acknowledgement from the EC of the commitment of Unite! and all of its partners to become a long-term strategic collaboration project.

The UPC is one of the most active partners in the Unite! working groups, with more than a hundred members of the community—teaching and research staff, administrative and service staff and students—involved.

In this new stage, the UPC will coordinate the working group that designs and implements the new models of strategic outreach, impact and dissemination. All Unite! member universities work to design and consolidate a new European university model to provide education and research of excellence focusing on today's major social and technological challenges. The communities of the member universities aim to develop and advance in the implementation of future European degrees and the creation of a European Doctoral School around strategic areas such as sustainable energy, artificial intelligence, Industry 4.0 and entrepreneurship. Unite! connects several European regions from an academic and research perspective fostering innovation and knowledge transfer in a multicultural, multilingual, digital and green setting.