It was unibz rector, Prof. Paolo Lugli, and vice-rectors, Prof. Johann Gamper and Prof. Alex Weissensteiner, who, together with the head of international relations, Dario Recla, received the delegation from TU Ilmenau: Prof. Jens Müller, Vice President for International Affairs and Transfer, Thomas Mirow, Head of Research Service and Technology Transfer, Vincenz Ullmann, Research Service, and Technology Transfer, Sophia Siegfried, Head of International Office.

The aim of the meeting was to establish new forms of cooperation and exchange with the TU Ilmenau. Initially, this could translate into a students’ exchange and lecturers’ exchange program within the framework of Erasmus but the medium-term goal is to build a European University Alliance.

“Yesterday we presented unibz to our guests and showed them our Labs in the NOI Techpark”, says prof. Gamper, “We exchanged the first ideas about future cooperation. Soon we will travel to the TU Ilmenau in a return visit”.

The birth of so-called “European Universities” is a strategic goal of the EU, whose vision is to create an innovative, competitive, and attractive European education and research area.

“We have noticed that unibz has a number of similarities with the TU Ilmenau: from the dimension of professors and students to similar research areas, but also similar problems such as the difficulty of acquiring students from rural areas, especially in STEM subjects. We would like to share our experiences and work together on future solutions. A European University Alliance would be a suitable framework to implement this goal and is one of our future projects", says vice Rector Gamper.

(zil)