Faces of Our CommUNAty: "We want to highlight all the powerful things that Una Europa has inspired."

I joined Una Europa in autumn 2021, as part of the Local Student Task Force of Uniwersytet Jagielloński. We were the first university to set up a Local Task Force, so it was a big moment in Una Europa. I began as the Task Force Officer, which mainly involved leading all the different teams we had in the Task Force and coordinating all the different tasks each team was organising About six months later, I joined the Una Europa Student Board, serving from 2022–2023.

In the summer of 2023 I graduated, so I expected to end my journey with Una Europa. But I ended up finding a job within the university – Bartosz Brożek [Vice-Rector for University Development at Uniwersytet Jagielloński w Krakowie and Future UniLab Lead] offered the possibility for me to join the Future UniLab, as Assistant Manager. This way I stayed part of the Una Europa family, but moving to the staff side.

What really intrigued me about Una Europa was the international cooperation and collaboration across different projects. I was studying for a bachelor’s degree in international relations, so the alliance kind of aligned with my field but from a different angle, one that enabled me to actually see how the real world works. I felt that this would be a path to explore how international connections work in real life, and to see if that is something that really intrigues me. And indeed, that was what happened!

I really enjoy collaborating with people from other countries because you get to explore different cultures, but you also get to experience different perspectives and approaches, which opens your eyes a little bit more.

I have a few actually. I remember dancing at a cèilidh at the University of Edinburgh, which was one of my favourite memories. But the one that really stands out for me is the Student Congress in Kraków, which we held in autumn 2022.

I started as one of the people helping to organise it, and then it became my job to deliver the whole Student Congress. This was unexpected news to me at the time, especially because I did not understand that much about Una Europa as I was more focused on local matters with the Local Student Task Force. The Congress opened up this whole international perspective.

The 2022 Student Congress is very memorable for me because, obviously I met lots of interesting people and students from other Una Europa universities, but I also managed to develop myself and my skills. This included public speaking and teamwork but also I learned how to communicate with people at different ranges, from students to staff. I found that very rewarding.

Now, with the years going by and looking at where I find myself, I think it had a lot to do with how I developed through the Student Congress.

The General Assembly revolves around this idea of ‘Reinventing the University of the Future’ through imagination, design, and creation. Since we have five years behind us, we want to highlight all the powerful things that Una Europa has inspired and showcase the different projects and innovative approaches that we have developed together. Alongside the typical group working sessions, participants will have the possibility to attend presentations on the Una Europa Joint Institute for Advanced Studies, the European Student Card Initiative, and the alliance’s upcoming joint master’s programme in Data Science and AI, to name a few. We will also have different workshops, with topics ranging from accessibility, to universities in virtual reality, to how to engage with students.

Polish culture is also on the agenda – we will have a workshop on Polish language and culture, and also the possibility to discover the magical city of Kraków through our Old Town tour or the location-based game we will do in Kazimierz, which is the Jewish neighbourhood of Kraków. We will also host museum visits and a pierogi-making session, which has gathered such a big interest!

For me, the main highlight of the General Assembly will be the Future UniLab – and I’m not only saying that because I’m a member of the working group! As Una Europa’s think-tank, we want to make sure that participants will not only have the chance to sample our thought-provoking krówki [Polish candy], but also for the first time there will be the chance to taste the Una Europa cocktail and mocktail, which was created by our visionaries, as part of our fifth anniversary celebrations! That’s one of the things I’m personally looking forward to, to see one of our outputs in a drinkable format.

The Future UniLab is also hosting an individual experience for participants to look at the concept of the university through different metaphors. This is based on the work of one of the visionary groups from last year, who looked at the relevance of universities based on different metaphors. For each metaphor you pick, you could see a different approach to how the university should be structured and how it should work.

At the General Assembly, people will choose between two metaphors – a sailor journey, or a musical journey – and then based on their choice they will picture the university using adjectives linked to the different metaphors and use these to navigate the future university in say, fifteen years’ time. Then participants will fill out an academic doughnut, based on the economic doughnut, to show how we can make the university sustainable for everybody. We will even have a huge handsewn doughnut, which has been made by a member of the Future UniLab team – you should definitely look out for it!

The next Una Europa General Assembly will take place at Uniwersytet Jagielloński w Krakowie from 26–28 May 2025.