European Campus

Somewhat late and amid European turmoil, five universities on the Upper Rhine have signed a paper founding a European Campus.

The universities are Basel, Freiburg, Strasbourg, Haute-Alsace (Mulhouse and Colmar), and the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology.

The motto: Think European, bundle the forces.

Basel

While Greek Prime Minister Tsipras is again asking for new European money to keep over-indebted Greece in the Eurozone, the deal with Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan to keep refugees out of Central Europe is tilting back. British Prime Minister Cameron is sluggishly fighting the Brexit of the United Kingdom from the European Union; the presidents of five universities, despite the ongoing crisis, plan an unbureaucratic European network without borders between their respective colleges.

Freiburg

Strasbourg

Students from three countries will quickly switch between various places on the European Campus with the help of a Trinational Regio Ticket using trains and buses. What is most important to Professor Hans-Jochen Schiewer, Rector of the Albertina-Ludovica: The result of a bi- or tri-national academic curriculum will be the European doctorate. The European Campus promoting a common infrastructure for research will become a magnet for the best young scholars and scientists, provided, as Red Baron likes to add, they speak French and German. 

The projected potential of 15,000 scholars and scientists, 11,000 doctoral students, and 115,000 students with a total budget of 2.3 billion euros depends on how many speak English as a lingua franca.

Haute-Alsace

KIT Karlsruhe

For some participating universities and institutes, the European Campus is just an experiment; for others, it is a centennial project. Rector Schiewer again: We shall give ourselves ten years. If it does not work, we shall stop it.

This fall, the first summer schools are scheduled at Freiburg University. Red Baron will participate in a well-established one by the Frankreich-Institut at the beginning of September with this year's topic: De Tintin au Congo à Charlie Hebdo; Bandes dessinées et caricatures de langue française.

All photos are ©Der Sonntag, Freiburg

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