TU Berlin president elected president of ENHANCE European alliance

Professor Dr. Geraldine Rauch was elected chair of the ENHANCE board of directors on 27 March 2023. This is the highest decision-making committee within the ENHANCE European alliance. The board of directors is made up of the rectors and presidents of the 10 ENHANCE partner universities as well as the chair of the ENHANCE steering committee and two representatives of the ENHANCE student forum. Geraldine Rauch succeeds her colleague Professor Anne Borg of Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim. Professor Krzysztof Wilde, rector of Gdansk University of Technology was also elected as co-chair.

Regarding her appointment, Geraldine Rauch says “A major alliance like ENHANCE provides an unbelievable wealth of knowledge, experience and different approaches. Climate change, digitalization and the war in Europe are just some of the huge challenges the world currently faces. International problems like these require strong international networks, working together with partners who we know well and trust. I am grateful for the trust my colleagues have shown in me and am looking forward to the challenge of chairing the highest committee within the ENHANCE alliance over the next two years.”

ENHANCE currently receives approximately 5 million euros’ funding from the European Universities Initiative of the European Union’s Erasmus+ program. An application for significantly more follow-up funding covering a period of four years from November 2023 has now been submitted to the European Commission. A decision is expected in summer 2023.

ENHANCE

The ENHANCE alliance was founded in 2019 under the coordination of TU Berlin with the goal of establishing a common European campus without physical, administrative or academic barriers. Together, the ENHANCE partner institutions seek to draw on science and technology to drive responsible social change.

The alliance’s original partner institutions are:

• Technische Universität Berlin (speaker university)
• Chalmers University of Technology (Chalmers)
• Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU)
• Polytechnic University of Milan (Polimi),
• RWTH Aachen,
• Universitat Politècnica de València (UPV) and
• Warsaw University of Technology (WUT)

In November 2022, TU Delft University of Technology, Gdansk University of Technology, and ETH Zürich joined the alliance as new partners.

ENHANCE offers

Despite the COVID pandemic, many of the alliance’s joint goals have been achieved over the past four years: More than 2,200 people have taken advantage of more than 30 international offers and activities, a common policy for teaching has been initiated and an instrument created with the European Education Pathways to enable students to complete a semester abroad without bureaucratic hurdles. ENHANCE also has a wide range of offers for shorter stays abroad. Micro credentials or summer schools offer students a number of possibilities to strengthen their knowledge and skills within the areas of ENHANCE’s pilot topics (climate protection, digitalization and sustainable cities).

Instructors at TU Berlin are also contributing to these offers. For example, Professor Dr. Petra Lucht and Dr. Bärbel Mauß from the Center for Interdisciplinary Women's and Gender Studies recently staged the Winter School on “Gender and Diversity in Science, Technology and Society.” Meanwhile, Professor Dr. Sabine Ammon and her team from the Chair of Knowledge Dynamics and Sustainability Technology will be running the ENHANCE Summer Course “Ethics and Epistemology of AI” in May 2023 and Dr. André Baier invites all ENHANCE students to participate in the Summer School “Critical Sustainability” from 17 to 21 July 2023 as part of the Sustainability Certificate program.

This article was first published on 30 March by TU Berlin.