Higher Education in post-pandemic Europe: What is the role of the National Recovery and Resilience Plans?

The European Students’ Union (ESU) hosts the 41st European Students’ Convention (ESC), which will occur virtually between the 15th and 17th of March 2021. The ESCs are flagship biannual events that provide the space for the international exchange of information and best practice on higher education policy between ESU’s members, constituting 45 National Unions of Students from 40 countries around the European Higher Education Area. We expect the event to attract around 100 participants, mostly student delegates from our national member unions and their local/institutional member associations.

In light of the Portuguese Presidency of the Council of the European Union and Portugal’s co-chairmanship of the Bologna Follow Up Group, the National Union of

Students in Portugal (FAIRe) has teamed up with ESU to co-host ESC 41 under the theme of “Building Resilience in Education: Students Uniting for Post-Pandemic Recovery”.

Being that education has been one of the sectors affected most by the unprecedented measures taken in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the core message for this event is to emphasize that enhancing communication and multilevel cooperation between higher education policymakers, and administrators as well as students, among other stakeholders, is the key to overcoming present challenges and concurrently to build resilience in higher education systems to be better prepared to face future crises.

Channelling this approach in light of the ongoing EU roll-out of the Next Generation EU Program, FAIRe, in collaboration with ESU, will be holding a high-level panel titled Higher Education in post-pandemic Europe: What is the role of the National Recovery and Resilience Plans?. The panel will take place over Zoom between 16:00 and 17:30 CET on Monday the 15th of March.

Guests*:

• A representative of the PT Government | EU Council Presidency |  Co-chairmanship Bologna Follow Up Group
• Matteo Vespa, Member of the Executive Committee of European Students’ Union
• Thomas Estermann, Director of EUA for Governance, Funding and Public Policy Development:
• Kinga Szuly, Head of Higher education policy sector at the Directorate-General for Education and Culture from the European Commission
• Paola Cammilli, policy coordinator for Social Dialogue, Economy policy and Governance of the European Trade Union Committee for Education

*The guest list may change.

When: Monday, 15th of March – 16:00-17:30 CET

Where: ZOOM platform (the meeting will also be streamed on ESU’s official Facebook account) – bit.ly/30zLDrT

Facebook event: https://fb.me/e/1aniOel6t

For further information and request, kindly reach out to:

Maciej Rewucki (ESU)  maciej.rewucki@esu-online.org.