Campus Life
The EU GREEN Alliance aims to promote a culture of sustainability in students and throughout the university community. Work Package 8 (WP8) "Building a Truly Sustainable Campus" has on detail several specific objectives among which are:
- develop a common identity among universities participating in EU GREEN, inspired by the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of Agenda 2030 by fostering positive behavior through measurable actions involving students and staff;
- increase awareness of environmental issues by fostering collaboration within the academic community;
- strengthen a sense of belonging, promote individual well-being, inclusiveness and the achievement of the SDGs, including in particular those related to health, gender equality, inclusive economic growth and global partnerships.
The University of Parma is actively participating in WP8, focusing on ten main challenges outlined in its Action Plan. These include: improving the energy efficiency of university buildings, protecting biodiversity, promoting sustainable mobility, efficient management of waste, and adopting green procurement policies. The University of Parma has also established a working group (Sustainable Athenaeum) assigning it the specific responsibility of designing and implementing concrete actions related to the challenges identified in the above action plan.
In addition to promoting change within universities, WP8 aspires to generate lasting cultural impact that is also reflected in society by fostering sustainable lifestyles. The participation to WP8 of members from diverse socio-cultural backgrounds stimulates the exchange of ideas and innovation, while the academic partnership activities create opportunities for international collaborations and interdisciplinary research.
Accessibility, inclusion and diversity
EU GREEN considers social impact and education for sustainable development as strategic objectives.
The O.U. UniPr's Inclusion, Accessibility and Diversity manages the activities of the EU GREEN WP7, which is in charge of defining the ‘Access, Inclusion and Diversity’ Guidelines conceived within the 9 partner Universities, in order to better identify the concept. The aim is to sum up the policies and the statistics about that topic, in a single European document, in order to let all the Alliance students to benefit the same common policies on Inclusion, Accessibility and Diversity. The collaboration on the work of building common guidelines is then as a starting point for the growth and the improvement of individual Universities, which can thus take eventually source from the other EU GREEN partners best practices.
Within WP7, the CAI is concerned with identifying in the joint programmes a first step to start thinking about distance learning, dedicated to UniPr students, who have difficulties in accessing education. The Alliance is currently developing an updated series of Annual Reports to summarise the key features and options of LLL (Lifelong Learning Programmes) in every Alliance Universities.
MOOCs (massive open online courses) are also on the subject of distance learning. They are courses designed for distance learning involving a number of students who are geographically dispersed to their universities, who have little access to them due to economic difficulties or disabilities, or who belong to ethnic minorities and therefore have difficulty in accessing education. The educational offer dedicated to the MOOCs is also developed in line with the Sustainable Development Goals of Europe, in pursuit of the guidelines set by the European Union 2035 Agenda.
Finally, there are several activities dedicated to the active involvement of female and male students in the Alliance, with the aim of involving them in bigger and even bigger challenges, allowing them to deal with international realities different from the context in which they are daily immersed within their university. The 2025 initiatives include the Winter Sports and Conference and the Photo Contest on ‘Diversity and Inclusion’.
