A student voice next to the institutional one

Since INGENIUM began, most of what the alliance has said about itself has come through its institutional channels, in press releases, web articles and the official record of its activities. An official, rather static voice that, important as it is, falls well short of capturing what living INGENIUM really feels like.

The INGENIUM Ambassadors initiative was created to add that missing voice. Students share the language and the everyday life of the audience the alliance most wants to reach, so they are the best people to tell other students what INGENIUM has to offer. Modelled on the INGENIUM Student Partnerships call, this initiative rewards communication projects run by students in close cooperation with the INGENIUM office of their own university.

53 applicants and 40 project proposals

The call was open during the first half of October. It invited students at INGENIUM universities to apply on their own or in pairs and to propose a communication project that would carry the reach and impact of the alliance to every corner of their university community.

What the call asked for was INGENIUM seen through the eyes of the people who take part in it, told in a warm, direct tone that other students would recognise as their own. Applicants were free to choose the formats that best suited their skills, and the call also welcomed projects that would take the Ambassadors off the screen and onto the campus itself.

Fifteen projects from eight universities

Each university set up its own panel, assessed the projects presented through it and sent in its selection. Munster Technological University selected four projects with six students and the Gheorghe Asachi Technical University of Iași two projects with four students. The University of Crete, the University of Oviedo and the University of Rouen Normandy selected two projects and two students each. The University of Skövde chose one project carried out by two students, and the Medical University of Sofia and South-Eastern Finland University of Applied Sciences one project and one student each.

Seven months of first-person content

The projects will run from 1 November until 31 May 2027. Each team will work with its local INGENIUM office, which will agree the plan and its pace, review every piece before it goes out and decide where it is published. The content will appear first on the university’s own INGENIUM channels. Anything of interest to the whole alliance will then be able to reach the central INGENIUM website and social media through the Communication Network, always with the Ambassadors credited as authors.

The selected projects will cover a lot of ground, from video interviews about studying and living in another culture to a health promotion campaign led by a medical student in Sofia, with a report on disability and inclusion on campus, student guides to European opportunities and a series on the people who keep INGENIUM running along the way. Ambassadors will also be able to step away from the screen and represent the alliance in person at open days, welcome events and student fairs.

Completing the project will bring the title of INGENIUM Ambassador, a digital badge, a letter of reference from the alliance and, where the study plan allows it, the role may also earn academic credit. On top of that, Ambassadors will travel to another INGENIUM city for a three-day job shadowing experience.

A trip to another INGENIUM campus

Ambassadors who complete their plan will spend three days with the communications team of another INGENIUM university, shadowing its daily work and, whenever the calendar allows, covering an INGENIUM activity taking place there. The alliance will cover up to €1,000 per Ambassador for travel, accommodation and subsistence.

The visit will also take them well beyond the office. Each Ambassador will spend a few days in a city and a country that many of them will be seeing for the first time, guided by colleagues who will show them their campus and the places where their students live, eat and meet. They will walk its streets, share meals and long conversations with the people who make INGENIUM work there, and come home with a story of their own to tell.

INGENIUM believes that an alliance of ten universities becomes real when its students start to feel other campuses as their own, and a name on a list of partners turns into a place they know and people they can call. With that in mind, each visit will bring two universities a little closer and build the sense of community that such an alliance of European universities wants to embody.

The cohort on the INGENIUM website

In the coming weeks, the INGENIUM website will introduce each of the 20 Ambassadors and their project, with a photo and a short biography in their own words.