On 8 July, our President Rik Van de Walle gave an invited contribution to the GENDERACTION conference organised under the auspices of the Slovenian Presidency of the Council of the EU.

​The universities of tomorrow must collaborate across national borders to a far greater ex­tent than today, writes Per Michael Johansen (Rector of Aalborg University).

On 1 and 2 July, the Royal Academy of Engineering and our association hosted a joint online conference bringing together leaders, policy-makers and researchers from the UK, EU and beyond. The conference explored trends in key technologies for the next 30 years, and their implications for engineers and universities of science and technology today.

Today, our Board of Directors appointed Peter Elspass (Leibniz University Hannover) as Co-Chair of our Task Force Benchmark.

On 10 June our President Rik Van de Walle (Rector of Ghent University​) delivered a speech on the invitation of the seventh European Women Rectors Conference co-organised by ETH Zurich and the European Women Rectors Association (EWORA). The overall conference theme was 'Leadership in Higher Education and Research in Times of Dynamic Global Change', and the plenary session in which Rik participated looked at this topic from the perspective of global climate change.

Our President Rik Van de Walle delivered a speech ´Three ways of looking at the European Research Area´ to the Doctoral Congress Engineering of the Faculty of Engineering of the University of Porto on 28 June 2021.

Our association has co-signed an open letter urging for the full association of Switzerland with Horizon Europe in order to ensure the continuity of the longstanding and successful collaboration in research and innovation with organisations from the European Union.

CESAER, the European University Association (EUA) and Science Europe call on all publishers to fully respect researchers’ rights and to end the use of restrictions and embargoes.

Our Board of Directors has appointed Christian Lerminiaux (President of ParisTech) as our envoy towards the French Presidency of the Council of the EU on the European Research Area (ERA) and the European Education Area (EEA).

CESAER and LERU call upon the European Commission and the Member States to draft an improved Pact for Research & Innovation in Europe, with direct and immediate involvement of stakeholder organisations (SHO), representing universities.