SUNRISE FAQs

The DAAD writes: " 'European Universities' are university alliances that are intended to bundle the strengths and diversity of European research and teaching in new structures in order to meet the challenges facing Europe."

There are a total of 64 alliances across Europe, in which more than 560 universities from 35 countries are involved. In Thuringia, these include TU Ilmenau, BU Weimar and FSU Jena, which each belong to a European University Alliance. TU Ilmenau and BU Weimar also act as coordinators of the alliances. The European Commission is funding the development of the structures of the joint alliances with €14.4 million over four years. The funding format runs within the framework of ERASMUS+.

The SUNRISE Alliance is now being established. The European Commission is accompanying this development with financial support for our 4-year structural development project, which serves to establish the SUNRISE Alliance. The fact that networking is already perceptible at the start of this project is a great success. We will know what the final result will look like in four years' time. Until then, there is of course an abstract goal that we all want to work towards together, but the scope for action has been deliberately kept open. This is why we are inviting the committees to ask themselves the following questions:

• What can be our contribution within the Alliance?
• What do we want to help shape?
• And how and with whom do we want to help shape this?

Active involvement and personal initiative are encouraged. This is an opportunity that could of course be missed, but that would be a great pity.

The students who took part in the first initial meeting of the SUNRISE International Student Council were able to get to know each other and discuss the next joint steps in an informal way. The atmosphere was very good - that was obvious and the coordinating team received corresponding feedback.

The application document is confidential, but we will of course be happy to pass it on if you actively participate. As part of the project, tools are being developed to promote transparency. A first step in this direction is our joint homepage www.sunrise-alliance.eu.

However, the EU Commission's program description is much more important, as it describes the expectations and the hoped-for "impact" of the format in great detail. The introduction of joint degree programs is not expected before the second half of the project. New double degrees may be available sooner.

The universities have been in dialogue with the federal states for some time now. This is also the goal of the EU Commission with this program, to make the standards in Europe more compatible. The state of Baden-Württemberg has already gone one step further in this respect and has incorporated changes into the Higher Education Act. The fact that Thuringia has not made any progress here is also due to the fact that only the FSU Jena was previously represented in a European university alliance, but now with TU Ilmenau (SUNRISE) and BU Weimar (BAUHAUS4EU) two other university alliances are involved, which are even coordinated by Thuringian universities.

A European University Alliance is initially a funded structure-building ERASMUS project. The call for proposals ran under ERASMUS+.

There is already an ERASMUS agreement between all partners involved. These were initiated as part of the application to the EU Commission.

It is expected that universities in a European University Alliance will have a preferential position in ERASMUS applications. This underlines once again how important it is in the here and now to be a university in such a European alliance.

This must be put to the test as part of the project activities (whether? and, above all, how?). Our partner universities are facing the same challenge.

There are 16 active task groups that deal with the various areas of the university (administration, teaching, research and transfer) across all locations. Part of the project's task is to create transparency. Two cross-university task groups in work package 6 are responsible for dissemination and the flow of information. In addition to the website and social media channels, a dedicated Moodle and a dashboard (project progress and impact) are also planned. A detailed workshop on SUNRISE and its content was held at Dies Academicus 2024.

This statement is positive, because if it were the other way around - i.e. if everything was already regulated and everyone only had to follow top-down guidelines - we wouldn't need the next four years of project funding and the students would no longer have the chance to use their own creative freedom. SUNRISE is a joint departure into unknown, new waters. Let's awaken our thirst for discovery and action and shape the alliance together.

The kick-off event was very early on in the project. As already indicated, not much can be reported right at the start of the project, as little could be worked out together due to a lack of time. And these activities initially served to prepare for the kick-off. On the other hand, it was a perfect opportunity to give the universities a kick-start and to awaken an unencumbered and unbiased thirst for ideas and action. Among other things, the kick-off meeting was used to initiate the alliance's decision-making bodies and launch the task groups.