Parkinson, beware !!!

Scottish and Californian universities will work on research into diseases such as Parkinson’s, First Minister Alex Salmond has announced.


The collaboration between Stanford, St Andrews and Heriot Watt was announced during Mr Salmond’s trip to the states. He added that Scotland had some of the world’s “best scientific minds” and its university sector was world class.


The Heriot Watt and St Andrews teams will work with research groups at Stanford to examine how stem cells grow and divide and how they change shape to form different types of tissue Stanford University is already collaborating with six Scottish universities on the SU2P project which has focused on the fields of life sciences and renewable energy.

St Andrews University

Stanford University

 Heriot Watt University

Mr Salmond said: “This research has the potential to lead to incredible medical breakthroughs that could not only give new hope to millions but contribute enormously to the economies of both Scotland and California.”


He added: “Translating advances in the life sciences into medical practice and transforming cutting-edge technologies into ground-breaking diagnostic tools have been major focuses of stem cell research and applied physics activities at Stanford.



Who is offering what?

- Heriot Watt University – Expertise in microfluidics

- St Andrews University – Microscopic laser surgery of single cells and image analysis computer software

- Stanford University – Expertise in stem cell science, regenerative medicine, and optical instrumentation design




source: BBC News
Below the SUP2 projects homepage:
http://www.su2p.com/Home.aspx

Oxford encourages Northern Irish

It is widely known is a financial practice of encouraging students from other regions. Interestingly, this is not quite legal. Oxford University recently announced financial support for students from Northern Ireland.

Oxford University has confirmed it will be extending its student financial support package, which is the most generous in the country for low-income students, to students from Northern Ireland as well as English students.


While it is not legally required to do so, the University feels that it is important to include potential students from Northern Ireland in encouraging applicants not to be deterred from applying to Oxford for financial reasons. Students from Northern Ireland will therefore be eligible for the most generous no-strings financial support for the lowest-income students of any university in England.

Students from Northern Ireland wishing to study at Oxford University from 2012 will have access to both government support and Oxford’s student support package – which for the lowest-income students will amount to more than £22,000 over three years.

Members of the Oxford University admissions team were in Northern Ireland last week for a regional conference for teachers – this was about clarifying the admissions process, as well as the student finance and funding package available at Oxford for Northern Irish students. All of this is part of the University’s efforts to make sure students and teachers have the most accurate information about what Oxford has to offer so that students aren’t put off from applying.

(source: http://www.universitiesnews.com)

1st European Universities Games 2012 !

            European Universities Games (EUG) is the largest European multisport student event, featuring 10 sports:
- basketball,
- handball,
- football,
- futsal,
- rugby 7s,
- volleyball,
- badminton,
- beach-volleyball,
- table tennis,
- tennis.

Logo of EUG 2012 Cordoba

The 1st edition of the European Universities Games will be held in Cordoba, Spain between July 13 and 23, 2012.

EUG 2012 ENTRY PROCEDURE & DEADLINE:
General Entry Form: 6 months (extended to March 1, 2012)
Quantitative Entry Form: 3 months
Individual Entry Form: 1 month
Certificate of Academic Eligibility (original): upon arrival

Underneath one of the clips that promote the Games in Cordoba:

In 2014, the 2nd European Universities Games will be held in Rotterdam, the Netherlands.

Logo of EUG 2014 Rotterdam

Underneath the link to the official website of the Olympic Games 2012:
http://www.eusagames2012.com/
and link to EUG 2014, which is still in development:
http://www.eugames2014.eu/

A few words about rankings

             Recently I got interested the individual rankings of universities in Europe and worldwide. Despite this that the blog is dedicated to universities in Europe, today I will present a little bit about the world ranking.

It turns out that the ranking of the ranking is not equal, because each institution / agency which creates a ranking based based on a different way of creation.

Example:

Cybermetrics Lab from Spain created a ranking for Europe, where first place is taken by Swiss Instytiute of Technology, Universities UK is only the later positions! Interestingly, the same agency creating the world ranking took into account the same university from Switzerland until the 24th place! ! ! All the above places are occupied by universities from the U.S. and other single countries. Sad ... but do not want to believe that none of the universities of Europe was not in the global top five.

Ranking made by Cybermetrics Lab, January 2012 (Spain)

Another ranking of the world created by Thomson Reuters from the UK seems to be more objective and "traditional". In ranking are appear the leading universities from Europe, such as the University of Oxford, University of Cambridge, Imperial College London, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology and others.

Ranking made by Thomson Reutres (UK)

These differences are obviously caused by the the methods of making such rankings. The agencies are taking other components to develop indicators.

Below you will find links to rankings referred to above. And of course I encourage you to check the ranking of yours university. ^ ^ My Jagiellonian University from Poland, in Cybermetrics Lab takes positions 203'rd... not bad, not bad :D

Links to rankings page:

http://www.webometrics.info/index.html

http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/world-university-rankings/

Wonderful adventure - happy birthday ERASMUS ! ! !

Erasmus anniversary logo

Probably everyone had wanted to leave to study abroad the country - at least for a while. Nowadays, it's easy. With great pleasure I present one of the European programs on education, which in recent years beats records of popularity - ERASMUS !

The Erasmus program was created in 1987 as a student exchange program. Although it has expanded the scope and objectives in the following years, the main idea remains the same: to develop international co-operation between universities.

This year the program celebrates 25 years ERASMUS action. On this occasion, the European Commission has created such jubilee clip.

At the present day practically every participating country has an official website of the program, below link to the official homepage. I encourage you to take a look.

- http://www.esn.org/

To celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Erasmus programme, ESN is conducting two key European-wide projects:

 

Other Erasmus anniversary logo

• SocialErasmus: ESN’s flagship project for 2012  encourages international students to volunteer and take part in social activities linked to charity, education or the environment. Events will be concentrated during a SocialErasmus Week that will take place from 4-11 of May 2012. 

• Ride for your Rights! (together with Campus Europae):  For the second time, the Ride for your Rights! project will raise awareness of mobility rights through a European bike tour. This time, the ride will bring the bikers from Luxembourg to Brussels. Flag parades all around Europe will be organised by the ESN local sections to celebrate the arrival of the cyclists at the European Parliament.

(source: https://www.esn.org/content/25th-anniversary-erasmus-programme)

Erasmus already gathers many as 33 countries. These are all 27 EU countries, four countries of the European Economic Area: Iceland, Lichtenstein, Norway and Switzerland, and two candidate countries: Croatia and Turkey.

A lot of my friends decided to take advantage of the Erasmus program. How do you think what were their impressions? - Strongly positive :D. So what are you waiting ... All you need is a little bit of desire and free time.

"3, 2, 1... ignition!"

EUA Logo"

Before the blog will focus on the latest events it is worth considering same organizational structure of European universities.To do this we must go back to 2001 when it established the European University Association (EUA).

What is the EUA ? ? ?
European University Association (EUA) - is an organization of higher education in Europe.In 2004, the EUA had over 700 members from 45 countries.The main task of the organization is to unify the process of educating students and conducting research in the framework of the Bologna Process.

Bologna Process Effects...Program initiated by signed by 29 ministers responsible for higher education on 19 June 1999 document.

Have you ever wondered who invented all these ECTS points ?
Answer -> Bologna ProcessPrincipal findings of Bologna Process:

• introducing a point system for evaluating student achievement ECTS
• division of studies in split-level
• European cooperation in quality assurance and to develop criteria and methods of quality assessment systems
• promoting the mobility of students and faculty
• promotion of lifelong learning

The Bologna Process has met with a rather severe criticism in scientific circles throughout Europe. Widespread allegations that the new program are: 

• commercialization of higher education - most students choose to "study for the masses", ie a three-year Bachelor Degree.
• decrease in the number of masters, the people over the full second-cycle (previously was a requirement for recognition as a university graduate).
• collapse of smaller universities and departments, which Bologna system does not reach a sufficient number of graduate students (students leave after reaching
  a bachelor), and change in undergraduate colleges or three academies.
• fall and the decline in the significance of certain faculties and directions - proliferation of degree courses in business, administration and social sciences at the expense of medical science, agriculture, humanities, closing lines of niche
  (eg esperantologia).
• inability to reconcile some of the assumptions of the Bologna system (large number of students taking degree, the pool of items to choose from, mobility) with a fair education and taking care of studying (working in small groups).
  
  
  I encourage you to think about how the Bologna Process impact on your university. ^^