First birthday of FIT FORTHEM

The official review of the first year of work in the FORTHEM Alliance's FIT FORTHEM project took place on 8 February 2022. The alliance currently includes universities from Mainz (Germany), Dijon (France), Jyväskylä (Finland), Opole (Poland), Palermo (Italy), Riga (Latvia) and Valencia (Spain). Two more universities - from Agder (Norway) and Sibiu (Romania) - will be joining the alliance soon.

The three-year FIT FORTHEM project, funded by Horizon 2020, has had many achievements in implementing collaborative efforts for organizational transformation towards the creation of an integrated European University. In the first year, the focus was on collecting data and information from each institution and developing joint plans, as well as comparing good practices and leading research directions.

In line with the European Commission's initiative, the project helps partner universities develop and test shared strategies and structures in terms of internationalizing research, science communication, open science, human capital and cooperation with universities' environment. The project also aims to improve access to infrastructure resources for all partners and to support scientific cooperation between researchers as well as for the regions.

During this year's concluding convention, the Vice-Rector for Research of the OU, Professor Jacek Lipok, was elected by representatives of the partner universities for the position of Vice-Chair of the General Assembly of FIT FORTHEM - the body monitoring the project's activities. The University of Opole is the coordinator of the project's information policy, and it also cooperates with partners in all the areas mentioned above, thanks to which the reports from the first year of activities were positively received by the representative of the European Research Executive Agency, Rinske van den Berg, who attended the convention.

The UO will host the international FIT FORTHEM conference at the end of June 2022 with a goal to promote joint activities and discuss cooperation plans for the next years. More information on the FIT FORTHEM project and the FORTHEM Alliance is available HERE.

Prepared by Assoc. Prof. Katarzyna Molek-Kozakowska, PhD, DLitt, Institute of Linguistics, FIT FORTHEM