Why European Universities matter - part 2

In this article, we focus on the engagement of ETH Zurich in the ENHANCE Alliance - European Universities are transforming the landscape of higher education by fostering strategic international collaboration in education and research while advancing student mobility. In a four-part series, we explore how these alliances are promoting innovative educational offers and mobility formats. 

Martina Schretzenmayr / ETH Zurich

Focus: Educational and mobility formats for the future

European University alliances provide a platform for higher education institutions to develop innovative mobility formats, ranging from short-term exchanges to long-term academic experiences. By fostering collaboration and experimentation, they play a key role in shaping the future of learning and international cooperation. In this article, we explore how the participation of ETH Zurich in the ENHANCE Alliance is driving the further development of mobility formats according to students’ evolving needs and how the alliance is enabling cross-disciplinary and problem-based learning. 

The University of Zurich has been part of the Una Europa alliance since May 2022. This cooperation with European research universities promotes innovative teaching methods and strengthens its presence in the European education and research landscape.

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ETH Zurich in ENHANCE

ETH Zurich, as a member of the ENHANCE Alliance since 2022, is at the forefront of developing innovative mobility opportunities for students, fostering international experiences that address societal challenges such as sustainability and artificial intelligence. ENHANCE provides a platform for the federal institute to collaborate with other leading technical institutions across Europe, creating innovative and inclusive educational formats that go beyond traditional mobility programmes. 

“ETH Zurich's collaboration with our peer technical universities in the ENHANCE Alliance provides students with innovative educational formats and international mobility opportunities. As a result, they acquire a wide range of transferable competencies, equipping them to respond to the critical challenges of today and tomorrow. In a context of evolving political circumstances, ETH remains committed to actively shaping the European Education and Research Area and thereby ensuring its continued leadership in academic excellence.” 

Prof. Dr. Günther Dissertori, Rector of ETH Zurich

ENHANCE, the European Universities of Technology Alliance, brings together ten leading European research-intensive universities with a focus on science and technology: RWTH Aachen, TU Berlin, Chalmers University of Technology, TU Delft, Gdańsk University of Technology, Politecnico di Milano, NTNU Trondheim, Universitat Politècnica de València, Warsaw University of Technology, and ETH Zurich.

Adapting to evolving student mobility needs

The participation of ETH Zurich in the ENHANCE Alliance is deemed crucial for several reasons. By engaging in the European Education Pathways Ecosystem, the key initiatives of the joint ENHANCE+ project, ETH expands the diversity and accessibility of mobility opportunities. This involvement enables the university to contribute to shaping more inclusive and flexible education pathways, ensuring students have a range of international experiences tailored to their career objectives in academy, industry or society.

One of the key benefits of ETH Zurich’s involvement in the ENHANCE+ project is its ability to adapt to the evolving needs of student mobility, as Dr. Philipp Bieri, ENHANCE Core Officer explains: 

“ENHANCE+ enables us to quickly identify and respond to trends in student mobility and to contribute to the European policy debate. Blended Intensive Programmes (BIPs), which combine collaborative online and face-to-face learning, are growing in popularity alongside traditional semester mobility. The ENHANCE alliance serves as a testbed for these formats, developed in collaboration with trusted partners.” 

Dr. Philipp Bieri, ENHANCE Core Officer

ENHANCE+ is the joint project of the ENHANCE Alliance, co-funded by Erasmus+ (EU partner) and Movetia (CH partner) over four years (2023-2027). The aim of the project is to open up transnational educational pathways and innovative learning formats to students that promote transferable skills alongside core professional competencies and convey European values, so that they can master the big challenges of the future.

Enabling cross-disciplinary and real-world learning

ETH Zurich’s involvement in ENHANCE aligns its mobility offerings with key European themes like sustainability and inclusion. In addition, ETH promotes transdisciplinary learning, as PD Dr. Bianca Vienni-Baptista emphasises, by fostering collaboration across disciplines and sectors, allowing students to tackle real-world challenges with input from both academic and business sectors. This integration of mobility and transdisciplinary education equips students to address complex societal issues.

“The Alliance gives me the opportunity to work across borders and across disciplines with colleagues from the partner universities in a way that is otherwise only possible in research collaborations. In the first year of the Bachelor's programme, our students work on a real case study from Switzerland, which is co-designed with partners from the public sector and industry. At the Master's programme, our students test different transdisciplinary methods and design a collaborative research process. Doing this in an international context is very exciting and aligns with the future of our students, who will be working in global companies.”

PD Dr. Bianca Vienni-Baptista, Transdisciplinarity Lab, Department of Environmental Systems Science

Illustrative examples

1// ENHANCE Summer School in Synergic Urban Systems: This learning opportunity is a Blended Intensive Programmes (BIP), which consists of an online part and a face-to-face part in one of the participating European cities. It is organised by seven universities, including ETH Zurich. In the BIP, an international group of students learns to develop context-specific and place-based visions and implementation proposals for an urban transformation area in a European city. 

2// Two hackathons took place in parallel at the Warsaw University of Technology:

  • ENHANCE BioHackathon = create sustainable solutions for waste management
  • ENHANCE Smart City Challenge = create innovative solutions for problems in an urban context

3// ENHANCE Anti-bias Lunchbreak: Low-threshold course offering for employees and students on how to deal with biases when working in international teams. The online course is conducted several times a year. 

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