The seven European universities that are part of NEOLAiA, under the coordination of the University of Jaén, held a meeting to address various initiatives related to entrepreneurship, as well as the implementation of other activities to be developed in the coming months.
“We hold a monthly meeting dedicated to each of the work packages – eight in total – of which the project consists, along with other issues to be addressed, related to teaching, mobility, research…“
Explains Sebastián Bruque, Vice-Rector for Internationalization at the University of Jaén.
Regarding the activities related to entrepreneurship, coordinated by Stefan Cel Mare University of Suceava (Romania), they include training for future entrepreneurs, a support system for entrepreneurial students, a summer course (SUMMA Entrepreneurship) that will serve to recognize and support the most innovative projects, as well as to create synergies between students from the different countries of the consortium, among other activities.
As for the rest of the activities that the group will organize in the coming months, ‘Focus Academy’ stands out, an abridged version of one of the activities related to teaching, in which each partner university will lead a course related to one of the key thematic axes of the consortium. Activities will also start to be developed in the research and extra-curricular program areas.
THE NEOLAIA CONSORTIUM ADDRESSES THE ORGANIzATION OF ENTREPRENEURSHIP AND TRAINING ACTIVITIES
The NEOLAiA (meaning ‘youth‘ in Greek) consortium is made up of the University of Jaén, Bielefeld University (Germany), University of Ostrava (Czech Republic), Stefal cel Mare University of Suceava (Romania), Siauliai State College (Lithuania), University of Orebro (Sweden) and University of Salerno (Italy). These are young European universities, of medium or small size, which are committed to their social and economic environment and with a prominent position in rankings, particularly those that analyse the positioning of young universities, such as ‘THE Young Universities’. In total, they have more than 110,000 students, 68 Faculties and Schools, and more than 350 Bachelor’s and 250 Master’s degrees.
NEOLAiA, whose motto is ‘Young universities empowering regionally rooted European talents‘, is articulated around eight work packages that define the work areas of the alliance (governance):
- Management
- Mobility
- Teaching
- Entrepreneurship
- Research
- Transfer
- Diversity
- Multiculturalism and multilingualism and
- The sustainability of the project’s actions.

The aim is to generate a resource structure that facilitates synergies in the above aspects and to improve the position and effectiveness of the universities that make up the consortium in the medium and long term. In parallel to the organization of activities, the group is already working on the presentation of the project to attract funding in 2022.