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Gabriele Siegert, UZH has been a member of Una Europa since May 2022. You represented the University of Zurich on the alliance’s Board of Directors until the end of last year. How important is the alliance for UZH?
Gabriele Siegert: Una Europa is very important for us, because we’re currently not politically connected to Europe and can’t fully be a part of EU programs such as Horizon Europe or Erasmus. The alliance allows us to establish and deepen close partnerships with like-minded universities across Europe. The 11 universities that make up Una Europa share similar strategic goals for education, teaching, research and innovation. Our comprehensive university fits in well with the alliance’s focus areas. Being a part of Una Europa enables us to also innovate in teaching, which, as Vice President Education and Student Affairs, is particularly important to me.
Can you draw an initial conclusion about what being a member of Una Europa means for the UZH community?
Siegert: I could mention that one of the first things we’ve learned is that other universities are just as bureaucratic as we are ...(laughs). Seriously though, our Una partner universities have enabled us to be more dynamic in driving innovation in teaching and making our degree programs even more international, for example thanks to the Una Europa One Health Summer School for PhD students, to which we have already contributed modules, or through staff weeks aimed at university administrators working in the same areas.
Our membership in Una Europa provides our researchers with access to seed funding that makes it possible to establish long-term cooperation activities between partner universities, for example through university research funding. Two joint study programs at the Bachelor’s level, the Joint Bachelor of Arts in European Studies (BAES) and the Joint Bachelor in Sustainability (BASUS), are being developed and are well underway.
Can you tell us a little more about the study programs? When will they be available to students?
Siegert: The Joint Bachelor of Arts in European Studies (BAES) is a comprehensive study program that examines the history, politics and legal framework of Europe, among other things. Thanks to our membership in Una Europa, the program will be available to UZH students through our Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences from the 2025 Spring Semester onward. Students can look forward to a wide-ranging and multidisciplinary program and get an opportunity to study at different leading European universities in the course of a single Bachelor’s degree.
As for the Joint Bachelor in Sustainability, UZH students will be able to participate through the Faculty of Theology and the Study of Religion as degree-awarding partner, likely from the Fall Semester in 2025. As with the BAES, each partner university will add their specific expertise to the degree programs.
Stefan Stöcklin
