Student Participation Without Borders

We are writing to encourage you to join us in spreading the word about the launch of the Student Participation Without Borders (STUPS) Multiplier Event, which will take place in a hybrid format on the 27th and 28th of April in Brussels and online. STUPS – Student Engagement Without Borders is a large-scale project funded by the European Union's Erasmus+ program with the goal of strengthening and promoting student participation in the good governance of higher education institutions from an inclusive perspective.

ESU will host the final event of the EU-funded STUPS project to present the findings of the project activities carried out by the project consortium: (1) a Student Rights Charter, derived from a systematic review of all regulations governing student participation, that provides a didactic and straightforward overview of the rights associated with participation that any student can currently exercise, (2) a Guide to innovative student participation practices, (3) two MOOCs on student participation and soft skills development for effective and efficient participation, and (4) Integral plans to encourage student participation. All the results can be found here.font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;background-position:0% 0%;background-repeat:repeat;background-image:none;background-size:auto;background-origin:padding-box;background-clip:border-box"> 

The STUPS project is creating the groundwork for a European network focused on developing new methods to increase student participation, with the ultimate goal of identifying true answers to one of higher education's most critical concerns. To do this, the initiative sought to increase awareness, cooperation, and capacity building for and understanding of student participation, which is an invaluable source of social innovation.

Registration link

The event will gather in one place HEIs and associations of university presidents and rectors from EHEA member nations, the student’s from all around Europe, student organisations are devoted to higher education in EHEA member nations, public and private bodies are responsible for evaluating and accrediting the EHEA's quality, policymakers, representatives of non-governmental organisations and reps from other pertinent Erasmus + initiatives will convene to discuss the challenges of increasing student participation in EHEA member nations. As such, we would want to invite all of your stakeholders through National Organizations and local sections.

We recommend you to invite:

• We encourage submitting it to as many HEIs as possible!
• Student unions and student organisations
• Youth councils at the national level and various youth organisations
• Any other pertinent stakeholder that comes to mind!
  

  Here you can find everything you need to disseminate the event

The event will discuss a number of critical issues concerning student participation, including the following: What factors lead to student disengagement, and how can we solve them? What defines best practices in terms of student participation in higher education institutions? Where are the impediments, and what additional actions are necessary? How participative are the European Union's higher education systems? What actions can stakeholders at the national and European levels do to promote universities' inclusiveness? These are the topics that the conference will discuss.

The event will include discussions around three key topics:

Participants and contributors to the discussions will include relevant stakeholders in the field.

During the early stages of the Bologna Process, European leaders made a ground-breaking political statement recognising students' vital role in the governance of higher education systems and institutions. As a result, increased student engagement became a guiding principle of the EHEA, serving as a political objective, a substantive ideal, and a procedural guideline all at the same time. This concept was articulated in Prague (2001), London (2007), and Yerevan (2015) Communiqués, among others.

Despite this, student participation is currently falling short of both quantity and quality targets, and the engagement of underrepresented and disadvantaged student groups is far from the desired standard. These challenges were identified during the course of the project and must be addressed urgently at the institutional, national, and European levels to promote good governance and inclusivity.

The STUPS consortium consists of five members and is led by the University of Huelva (Spain). Other partners are the University of Évora (Portugal), the University of Applied Sciences of Upper Austria (Austria), the European Students’ Union (Belgium) and the Directorate of Evaluation and Accreditation of the Junta de Andalucía (Spain).

As a hybrid activity, the Multiplier Event will be held in Brussels. However, you may follow the event online as well. After registering, you will receive an email confirmation with all of the event's details.

Click here to register for the event. Registrations are open until the 15ht of April 2022! We hope to see many of you there!

If you have any questions, you can reach out to us at maria.sierra@esu-online.org and maciej.rewucki@esu-online.org.

Best wishes,

#STUPsSummitEU