Politecnico’s term as chair of CLUSTER network gets into full swing in Grenoble
An important meeting, which took place Oct. 23-25 at the Institut National Polytechnique in Grenoble, for the community of the international university network CLUSTER, during which the mandate of Politecnico's presidency came into full swing. PoliTO showed up with a high-level delegation: PoliTO Rector and President of CLUSTER Stefano Corgnati was joined by Professor Roberto Zanino and Marta Pognant, Secretary General and Network Coordinator, along with Professors Alberto Godio, Michel Noussan and Francesco Novelli.
Many meetings scheduled in Grenoble, including: the twelfth workshop of the Sino European Engineering Education Platform (SEEEP), under the leadership of Professor Josè Santos-Victor of the Instituto Superior Tecnico de Lisboa; the kick-off of the activities of the five CLUSTER Working Groups (WGs) -- dedicated respectively to the European University Alliance (under the leadership of Professor Godio), Sub-Saharan Africa (under the leadership of Professor Chiaramonti, assisted by Professor Noussan), mobility, support for competitive bidding and communication; finally, the first meeting in the presence of the network's Steering Committee, chaired by Rector Corgnati, assisted by the network's Secretary General, Professor Zanino, and the Coordinator, Marta Pognant.
As part of the SEEEP workshop, Professor Novelli, co-director of PoliTO China Center, brought greetings from the Chair and PoliTO to the participants. The workshop featured contributions from several of China's leading technical universities and European CLUSTER member universities, ranging from education topics to doctoral pathways and research, emphasizing examples of collaboration between the two regions.
The WG meetings made it possible to identify priorities and actions for each to achieve their goals.
The Steering Committee heard and discussed the presentation of CLUSTER's strategic vision by Rector Corgnati. It then formally approved the new structure of the WGs proposed by the Chair, after listening to the presentations of the respective chairs; it also extensively discussed the status and prospects of the CLUSTER-China collaboration and approved the decision to continue this collaboration, albeit with due attention also to geopolitical aspects, as also recommended in the recent “Heitor report,” requested by the European Commission in view of the definition of the new Framework Program.
“These were days of intense discussion, which made it possible to highlight the crucial role of CLUSTER not only as a platform for connecting the Tech Universities inside the network,” remarked Rector Stefano Corgnati, ”but also as a facilitator for coordinating actions at the international level, towards areas of traditional cooperation such as China and towards areas of current strategic interest, such as Africa. CLUSTER will play a central role in developing the new European vision of universities as engines of competitiveness.”
2025 CLUSTER General Assembly will be held in early April at Karlsruhe Institute of Technology.