Starting point for unique European cooperation
Milestone in European Cooperation in Higher Education
15.7.2020 | DIT press office
The European Campus Rottal-Inn (ECRI) of the Deggendorf Institute of Technology (DIT) is making history with the approval of the "European Campus of Studies and Research" as a European Grouping of Territorial Cooperation (EGTC) as the only EGTC in Bavaria in the university sector.
The approval of the EGTC by the Government of the Upper Palatinate makes it easier for the university and its founding members, the Upper Austrian University of Applied Sciences (FH OÖ) and the Alma Mater Europea in Salzburg, to cooperate across European borders. More precisely, the EGTC makes it easier to submit European project applications in the higher education sector and thus to obtain funding, as Bavarian State Minister for Education and Culture, Bernd Sibler, points out.
For Professor Horst Kunhardt, head of the ECRI, the approval of the EGTC means that exchanges of students and professors with other universities will be strengthened, courses of study can be developed together with other universities and the exchange of knowledge will be promoted. This will make it easier in future to launch initiatives and research projects together. In particular, cooperation with other universities is an essential part of ECRI and is now gathering momentum.
As MEP Manfred Weber, who supported the project of campus leader Prof. Kunhardt and university coordinator Georg Riedl from the outset, emphasises, the EGTC will in future be of greater importance when it comes to cross-border projects and European funding. As a result, ECRI will be much more visible within the EU and will be increasingly perceived as a brand.
The EGTC is an instrument of the EU, which serves to promote cross-border, transnational or interregional cooperation within the EU. The EGTC acts as a legal entity and usually has members from at least two EU member states, who define the objectives and tasks of the EGTC in a cooperation agreement.
Bild (THD/ECRI): The European Campus Rottal-Inn writes Bavarian university history as Bavaria’s first EGTC in the university sector