Press release: New impulses for research and innovation

No. 151 - 24.09.2021

European higher education network of the University of Göttingen starts project “Enlight Rise”

The University of Göttingen and her partners in the European University network Enlight will develop a common research and innovation agenda in the coming years. By identifying joint strengths, they will foster new groundbreaking, large-scale collaborative research projects. In February 2021, the Enlight partners announced the success of their funding application for a research and innovation component within the network: the European Union granted the network 2.3 million euros for three years for the proposal “Enlight Rise”. On 27 September 2021, the Enlight Rise kick-off meeting will take place, enabling the project to start in October 2021.

„Research has to tackle major global challenges, such as climate change, health, equity and migration as well as the Digital Revolution”, explains academic project manager Professor Hiltraud Casper-Hehne from the University of Göttingen. “These challenges reflect our core research strengths here in Göttingen, and the EU has now created optimal conditions to pursue them together with our partners. Through this European initiative, leading European research universities will undoubtedly be able to initiate a wave of new major cross-national projects“.

In the framework of Enlight Rise, the University of Göttingen is responsible for the work package Open Science. This work package aims to bundle expertise and make research results accessible to the public. In addition, project staff of the University of Göttingen collaborate in a leading position in the development of digital infrastructures. 

“In these areas, the University of Göttingen belongs to the top in the world” says Professor Norbert Lossau, Vice-President for Digital Transformation and Infrastructure and member of the executive committee of Enlight Rise. “We are delighted that we can contribute to Enlight. The Lower Saxony State and University Library is predestined to take a leading position here”. The construction of a “European Innovation District“ promotes the collaboration between the scientific and industrial sector in the regions of the partner universities, while the “Research and Innovation Observatory” brings the results and innovations from the projects into the public domain. From the beginning, Enlight Rise will also include a strong focus on early-career academics.

Together with the University of Göttingen, the Universities of Gent, Groningen, Uppsala and Tartu as well as the University of Bordeaux, the University of Basque Country, Comenius University in Bratislava and the Irish University of Galway constitute the higher education network Enlight. The European Union currently funds Enlight among its European Universities with a total of five million euros. Further information can be found at https://enlight-eu.org.