Jointly responding to Europe’s and global challenges

Europe needs to respond and adapt to new and evolving challenges, with more expected to arise in forthcoming years, which are also connected to the global challenges, as identified in the Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations:

• Social and demographic challenges, such as ageing and migrations, have huge implications in many areas, from health and social care systems to economic and political stability. There is a need of strengthening social cohesion, fighting exclusion and discrimination, and tackling inequality.
  
• European leadership in the fight against climate change, translated into the European Green Deal and the strategy for the decarbonisation of the European economy, will require enormous adaptations throughout every sector in all Member States.
  
• Technological change driven by ubiquitous digitisation is changing the workplace and daily life profoundly. Many traditional occupations may disappear, while thousands of new jobs will require different skillsets, thereby reinforcing the need for staff to remain agile and assume responsibility for their own life-long learning.
  
• Globalisation has definitively challenged the historical Euro-centric vision. Europe’s old nations are no longer the world rulers, but Europe is still the world reference for democracy, rule of law, equal opportunities and welfare, values that we must help to protect and maintain through enhanced cooperation.
  
• While the COVID-19 pandemic has revealed the risks our societies can face, it has also shown the importance of science, research and global cooperation.INGENIUM is committed to the objective that universities continue as key actors to address most of the foregoing challenges and the Higher Education Sector needs to move fast to adapt structures and performance to maintain its crucial contribution to social development, as it has successfully delivered for centuries.Therefore, the INGENIUM Alliance is particularly and strongly committed to: