The Advanced Technology Higher Education Network Alliance (ATHENA) will continue to pursue its mission towards further development of the European University initiative. ATHENA Executive Board has reaffirmed its commitment to continue joint action irrespective of the external funding available.
“We believe that ATHENA will become a vibrant international university campus that inspires local communities and delivers significant added value to the ambitious developments of the European Higher Education and Research Area and the digital transformation of society in general. We share a joint vision, a dedicated executive team and fully engaged communities to succeed together”, says Dr. Konstantinos Petridis, ATHENA European University Secretary General.
“During the first phase of ATHENA, we created the fully-fledged governance structure for coordinated action, expanded global partnership by including associations of higher education institutions – CONIF (Brasil) and RUFORUM (Africa) – and associated partner universities in Austria and Ukraine. We developed a pool of joint education offers, including thematic clusters, COIL and training courses as well as Blended Intensive Programmes facilitated by international student and staff mobility. We created ATHENA ESN, the first ESN Section among European University alliances to facilitate joint students’ initiatives. By now, ATHENA has fully developed a joint research infrastructure and a firm basis for further collaboration of research teams within the alliance. Throughout ATHENA, we created strong links with industrial stakeholders to support and enhance our local and regional ecosystems and boost R&D and technology transfer initiatives and contribute to the development of the talent pool. Moreover, a network of dedicated academics and students willing to work together has been built – the main prerequisite for further collaboration”, says Prof. Nuno Escudeiro, ATHENA European University Alliance Coordinator.
What is ATHENA?
The ATHENA European University Alliance brings together Porto Polytechnic Institute (Portugal), University of Maribor (Slovenia), University of Orléans (France), University of Siegen (Germany), Hellenic Mediterranean University (Greece), Niccolò Cusano University (Italy), Vilnius Gediminas Technical University (Lithuania), Maria Curie-Skłodowska University (Poland), and University of Vigo (Spain).
ATHENA also has three associated partner universities: Carinthia University of Applied Sciences (Austria), Igor Sikorsky Kyiv Polytechnic Institute (Ukraine), and Lviv Polytechnic National University (Ukraine).
