Now in its 14th year, the EU Studies Fair is a unique event focusing on higher education in the fields of EU studies, international relations, business, and law. It includes practical seminars and on a typical year brings 700-800 visitors and showcases around 40 world-class institutions. This year, the EU Studies Fair was held at the Thon Hotel, and was opened with a speech by Androulla Vassilliou, European Commissioner for Education, Culture, Multilingualism, and Youth. She spoke about the current state of EU education, specifically the following:
- 1 of 5 under the age of 25 is unemployed in the EU
- The necessity for modernism of higher education – specifically:
– Adapting to the digital age
– Increasing the use of Information and Communications Technology (ICT), including the growth of online education
– Increasing the use of Open Educational Resources – free accessible, openly formatted and licensed documents and media for the use of education. The Learning
Resource Exchange (LRE), launched in 2004 for European countries, contains more than 200,000 learning resources and is multilingual.
- Development of a new ranking system for European universities, set to go public in 2014 (http://www.umultirank.org/)
- Jean Monnet program, which brings together 1,500 professors and 500,000 students every year
- Erasmus for All, which is set to begin in 2014 and will replaces seven existing programs with one. It brings together the existing Lifelong Learning Programme (Erasmus, Leonardo da Vinci, Comenius and Grundtvig), Youth in Action, and five international cooperation programmes (Erasmus Mundus, Tempus, Alfa, Edulink and the programme for cooperation with industrialised countries).
Fulbright Schuman was present at the event to provide information on our grant, which is funded by the U.S. Department of State and the European Commission and focuses on research and/or post-graduate study on EU affairs or U.S.-EU relations at an accredited American university or independent research center. The program is open to citizens of all 27 EU member states and US citizens. Fulbright Schuman welcomes proposals related to the study and research of ICT, and uses webinars to promote the Fulbright application process.
At the event, we advised students about the US higher education process. We also discussed possible opportunities to collaborate with the European Law Students Association (http://www.elsa.org/) and University of St. Gallen (http://www.apsia.org/schools/profile/?ID=52), an APSIA member school.