UNA.FUTURA: DESIGNING THE DIGITAL FUTURE OF EUROPE

FACULTY WORLDWIDE

Throughout June and July 2021, the eight leading European universities of the UNA Europa 2030 alliance offered their students a unique experience: tackling real life challenges in cross-European teams. Set up as an open innovation design event, Una.Futura took students on a journey developing solutions to the challenges arising from the digital revolution. Arnoud Martens, International Officer at Group T Leuven Campus, was facilitator of one team.

In 2018, seven prominent research universities joined forces to create UNA Europa 2030, an alliance that aims to lay the foundation of the European University of the Future. The partners – including KU Leuven – are committed to establish a profound collaboration with a focus on qualitative and innovative education and research that stimulate the international opportunities for students, staff and researchers.

“The seven partners – there are now eight of them – have been at the heart of Europe’s intellectual tradition for almost 1,000 years”, Arnoud explains. “They have a rich cultural heritage and the ambition to shape the Europe of the future. Together they count almost half million students and staff and reach millions more online”.

Arnoud Martens

©Julie Feyaerts

Challenges

In spring 2021, a digital platform was set up where students and staff could share ideas and discuss with colleagues from across the whole UNA Europa 2030 community. Teamed up with facilitators and experts, they worked on jointly finding solutions to six challenges that all relate with the exponential advance of digitisation in all aspects of everyday life, be it in education, at work, in social interaction, communication, health and many others. The six challenges were: 1. Digital empowerment, 2. Digital citizenship, 3. Digital economy, 4. Augmented human, 5. Cyber threats and 6. Mental well-being and social relations in the digital work.

“Each challenge was assigned to one or more international teams”, Arnoud continues. “Our team got ‘Digital citizenship’ with the task of developing an e-voting system. Six students had signed up for this. The entire design process took two weeks. After the kick-off with an expert talk on the theme, the team got down to work. The first week was entirely reserved for gathering documents and information on e-government systems and good practices. It quickly became apparent that Estonia is a frontrunner in the EU that can serve as a model for the digitisation of public services and administration. Other countries are clearly less advanced; some do not even have electronic identity cards yet. Equalising the situation in the EU will be the first major work to do”.

Young people

During the second week, the team concentrated on designing a European e-voting system. “We initially aimed at young people as the target group because they are most familiar with digitisation”, says Arnoud. “The complexity of the task soon became apparent. Not only technologically, but also in terms of security and privacy. Fortunately, the team also included a PhD student in law who was well versed in legal matters. Twenty-four students of KU Leuven took part in Una.Futura 2021, including seven engineering students from Group T Campus. Arnoud is proud of their commitment, especially since most of them are from outside the EU.

The platform was closed mid-July. The collected ideas and ensuing discussions will form the groundwork for building a joint strategy for UNA Europa 2030. The analysis of the ideas will be shared with the community in November 2021. Subsequently, the second phase of the process will start at policy level. The new strategy is expected to be ready for action by May 2022.

Yves Persoons

www.una-europa.eu