Building resilience - Annual Report 2020

Our Annual Report 2020 summarises how, despite the challenges and turbulence of the past year, we have made great progress as an association together with our Members. In 2020, our association united over 50 universities of Science and Technology (S&T) from 26 countries who employed over 95,000 academic staff, educated over 1,100,000 students and were awarded over €4 billion worth of European research funding. Our dynamic network supports our Members (i) to learn from each other, (ii) to advocate their contributions and interests and (iii) to inspire key debates. Our Work Plan from 2020 to 2021 put the contribution of universities of S&T to ecological, economic and social sustainability at the heart of the activities and deliverables of our association. The over 1,000 volunteers and leaders from our Members have worked tirelessly to advance the vital contributions that research, education and innovation play in the systemic changes needed to achieve the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. Our association has thus continued to be an active and constructive partner at the European level and contributed to major milestones, such as shaping the European Research Area, the European Education Area and the new generation of EU funding programmes. For each of our areas of work, the report summarises the activities and deliverables of our bodies, with a particular view to highlighting the contribution of our association to sustainability. David Bohmert (Secretary General) said “2020 marked an extraordinary year for universities of S&T and their students, teachers, researchers, support staff and leaders. Next to the imminent challenges and pressures on research, education and innovation of switching to online modes of working and to safeguard the health and well-being of our communities (both on-campus and off-campus), 2020 demonstrated the vital role of S&T in contributing to tackling global challenges such as the Covid-19 pandemic. “We may also not forget about the tremendous global challenges that loom behind the pandemic - whether they are cultural, ecological, economic, health-related, social or societal. “Together, our Members and association are emerging from a period of ‘survival’, focused on ensuring core operations, as (i) more directed where we have influence, (ii) more agile, (iii) diverse, (iv) sustainable and (v) resilient. The last is of course a great engineering property linked to ductility, self-healing and self-learning, all valuable features for during and after a year unlike almost any other.