Strengthening Bonds: Upper Rhine Universities and Cities Forge Deeper Collaborative Ties for the Future
Intensifying cooperation between universities and cities on the Upper Rhine was the focus of the second “Eucor Cities Meeting” yesterday afternoon (October 12, 2023) in Karlsruhe. The Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) and the city of Karlsruhe invited to the meeting of top representatives of the trinational Eucor network and its headquarters cities. The common goal is to further strengthen the region, particularly as a location for innovation.
“Eucor is a shining example of how cooperation between universities and cities can connect and strengthen a region across national borders,” says Professor Thomas Hirth, Vice President of Transfer and International Affairs at KIT and Vice President of the Eucor Association. “In Karlsruhe we live the Close cooperation between the city and KIT for many years. For us at KIT, the idea of transfer and involving the citizens of Karlsruhe in our research is very important.”
“Research and teaching thrive on intensive exchange between each other, and the locations are now also included. The meeting in Karlsruhe not only brought the five Eucor member universities closer together again. We in Karlsruhe, with the KIT University of Excellence, also benefit from this, so I am even more pleased that we were able to host this meeting,” said Karlsruhe Mayor Dr. Frank Mentrup. An entry of all present elected representatives from the three countries in the Golden Book of the city of Karlsruhe underlined the symbolic nature of the trinational meeting.
The Eucor member universities see themselves as places of science whose innovative and transformational power can only be fully effective in cooperation with the university cities. “The Upper Rhine is already a world-leading innovation region for MedTech and pharmaceuticals. We want to strengthen it and make it even more visible, especially for industry and investors,” said Professor Andrea Schenker-Wicki, Eucor President and Rector of the University of Basel.
New areas of cooperation between universities and cities were therefore a central topic of the meeting in Karlsruhe City Hall. Among other things, three projects were presented that are being promoted in tandem between cities and universities: the “Sustainability Working Group” launched on the initiative of the University of Freiburg and the city of Freiburg for the sustainable transformation of the Upper Rhine region, and the “Railway Manifesto of the Cities on the Upper Rhine” initiated by Strasbourg as well as the major project “Biocampus Oberrhein”, in which Eucor universities and cities, led by the University of Basel, want to strengthen solidarity between public and private sector actors in the health sector.
About Eucor – The European Campus
Eucor – The European Campus is a trinational network between five universities in the Upper Rhine region. The members include the universities of Basel, Freiburg, Haute-Alsace, Strasbourg and the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT). Together, the universities pool the skills of 15,000 researchers, 13,500 doctoral candidates and 117,000 students in a strong research and economic region between France, Germany and Switzerland. The aim is to build a clearly profiled scientific area with international appeal.