Laurent Bordes, UPPA President, welcoming words during the Kick-Off meeting
On September 2021, the six universities of the UNITA Alliance began a new project, called “Re-UNITA: Research for UNITA”, with a grant of 2 million € from the European Commission, in the framework of the H2020 programme, within the call «Science With and For Society» (SWAFS) under the project number n° 101035810.
With a duration of 3 years, the project aims to create an enabling environment for the emergence of a shared research and innovation agenda within the UNITA alliance, highlighting the importance of UNITA and its potential in the field of research and innovation.
Re-UNITA is coordinated by the Université de Pau et des Pays de l’Adour (UPPA), involving the whole UNITA consortium (UBI, UNITO, UNIZAR, USMB, UVT).
The partners will have a great opportunity to deeply foster cooperation in research and innovation, with five main objectives, which aim to maximize the main aspects involved in the development of research (strengthening the levels of human and material resources, together with collaboration with the structures of the community) and knowledge transfer.
In detail, Re-UNITA's objectives imply increasing collaboration between institutions, focusing on interdisciplinarity, including access to the facilities of partner universities. This implies having researchers, and it is therefore necessary to develop a strategy to attract scientists to increase the Alliance's human resource potential, with special attention to gender equality.
As the Re-UNITA project is an example of network collaboration, the research is intended to stimulate synergies between what is done in universities and non-university partners to improve the economy of mountain regions. Finally, the focus will be placed on the dissemination and sharing of research results, through open science concepts.
The work packages were distributed by the Université Savoie Mont Blanc (Developing joint and collaborative European research programs based on interdisciplinarity); Università di Torino (The development of a common strategy to attract European researchers at all stages of their career and the promotion of researchers of the Re-UNITA Alliance will allow the development of a strong network of researchers); Universidad de Zaragoza (Creating an innovative European network of shared infrastructures); University of Beira Interior (Fostering the vitality and socio-economic diversification of mountain regions and cross-border communities); and Universitatea de Vest din Timișoara (Ensuring the dissemination of research results and the propagation of science in society).
As coordinator of the project, the Université de Pau et des Pays de l'Adour will lead the Work packages Management and coordination and Communication and dissemination.
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