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Challenges

At present, European universities face two interrelated challenges:

  • To better adapt their education and research to the real needs of society, through an efficient mutual knowledge and know-how transfer arising from cooperation with economic practice.
  • To find ways to prepare their students for work in the global world, mainly for cooperating with stakeholders from countries outside Europe, including developing and/or emerging regions.

The project consortium wishes to address both challenges by developing sustainable strategies for cooperation between institutes of higher education and enterprises among the European Union stakeholders and those from Latin America and the Caribbean (“LAC”).

Nowadays, the EU is developing an intensive dialogue with LAC. This is due both to the huge potential for cooperation in the spheres of economy, commerce, education, research, etc. that has not been properly utilized up to now, and the clear cultural affinity between both regions. The creation of a strategic EU-LAC alliance and policies aimed at strengthening links in the area of higher education have been expressed in several documents within the EU-LAC dialogue (declarations from EU-LAC summits, specific EU programmes (ALFA, Alban), etc.

However, cooperation with LAC partners is hindered by two main obstacles

  • The current arrangements for university-enterprise cooperation in many cases lack efficient tools and a systemic and sustainable base.
  • The idea of strengthening the EU-LAC dialogue has not sufficiently penetrated the decision-making spheres within enterprises, institutions, and other European stakeholders.

The project consortium wishes to create the core prerequisites for this cooperation in the participating institutions and disseminate them among other European universities, enterprises, institutions and other stakeholders. Obviously, the project itself cannot change the overall present situation in the field.