Dimitri Beeckman on NEOLAiA meeting: ”We reached concrete agreements on how to strengthen collaboration in the coming months and years”
Representatives from faculties of medicine and health within the NEOLAiA alliance discussed future collaborations in both research and education. Professor Dimitri Beeckman can be seen on the far right in the photo.
New and closer collaborations within medicine and health between NEOLAiA:s partner universities. That was the purpose of the meeting hosted by Örebro University in September, which gathered some 15 representatives from NEOLAiA’s six universities.
Hi there Dimitri Beeckman, professor of nursing science and one of the initiators of the NEOLAiA meeting within medicine and health.
What was the meeting about?
“The goal of the meeting was to bring together the medical and health faculties of the NEOLAiA alliance and get them to think strategically about how they can collaborate with the alliance partners on research and education.”
What were the highlights of the meeting?
“The partners reached concrete agreements on how to strengthen collaboration in the coming months and years. Action items were formulated to organise thematic meetings on the following topics: Medical Education and Evaluation, Basic Sciences, Sports and Physical Activity, Health Sciences, Clinical Medicine, and Technology in Medicine and Health. The partners also agreed to take the initiative to launch a NEOLAiA webinar series in the field of medicine and health. An agenda for 2022-2023 will be available soon.”
What do you hope will be the outcome of the meeting?
“We hope that this meeting and follow-up meetings will lead to joint research proposals and projects, study programmes, webinars, student and staff exchanges, etc. The positive outcome of this inaugural meeting will likely evolve in the coming months and years as NEOLAiA academics become more familiar with each other's work and expertise and experience.”
What does the meeting mean for the NEOLAiA alliance?
“This was a concrete networking event with the leadership teams of the NEOLAiA alliance medical and health partners. We hope to inspire other faculty within the alliance to organise similar meetings to strengthen collaboration and streamline partner efforts.”
Text: Jasenka Dobric
Translation: Charlotta Hambre-Knight
Örebro University is one of nine young European universities that together form the alliance NEOLAiA. The initiative is intended to strengthen the member universities’ international competitiveness and increase opportunities for internationalisation of education, research and collaboration.
Together, the alliance is applying for status as a “European University” within the framework of the European Universities Initiative (EUI) – an EU programme set up to strengthen strategic partnerships between European higher education institutions.
Read more about NEOLAiA
The meeting was organised by professors Elisabeth Hultgren-Hörnquist and Dimitri Beeckman, heads of internationalisation at Örebro University’s School of Medical Sciences and School of Health Sciences respectively. Staff from the International Office and the Executive Office also contributed to setting the agenda for the meeting. In total, 14 representatives from faculties of medicine and health within the alliance took part in the meeting. With the aim of strengthening the ties between the universities within NEOLAiA and of identifying new collaboration opportunities within research and education, the group was joined by a number of colleagues from the Faculty of Medicine and Health at Örebro University.
