Christmas letter from the BUP Director

2021-12-21

The year 2021 and the 30th anniversary of the BUP is drawing to a close, as we approach the end of this year. What a year it has been at the BUP! With a new Strategy for 2021-2025 and the Action Plan 2021 fulfilled - and even with more tasks conducted than we promised - we can look back at 2021 and be proud of what have been achieved. This year has been an extraordinary year, with several new projects and platforms being under development which are about to be implemented.

Our Space Bridge 2.0 series has proved a worthy addition to the BUP calendar and has allowed us to present a range of interesting and uniquely regional perspectives on sustainability in the Baltic Sea region (BSR). No doubt our increasingly adept online skills as a result of the pandemic have boosted their success. The BUP Course Platform is under development as well as 15 online courses, related to the BUP 10 Themes and our team of E-tutors are supporting the transformation to online education. The students conference, PhD Training, PhD award, scientific Symposium, two special issues in scientific journals, Supervisor Collegium and the projects Climate Change curricula, Digital at home, Sustainability at BUP Universities and Quality Assurance have been running despite the Covid-situation. And the student representatives and their parliament are now more dynamic since we launched the BUP Student Ambassadors.

It is important to stress that the conducted as well as the upcoming planned projects are designed together with and for colleagues and students at our Participating Universities. The BUP is all about internationalisation in practice. One of the key issues in realising the practice, is the way we work and co-operate. The BUP working model stresses the importance of designing inter disciplinary and intercultural TEAMS of colleagues from the participating universities to work in co-operation. Colleagues from different disciplines and academic cultures contribute with their knowledge in developing courses, course material, running projects as well as conducting research - in CO-OPERATION.

Since four years back there is a steady trend that we increase the number of universities in the Programme, from 62 universities in 2017 to current 96. For 2021 we had 11 new universities who joined. For 2022 we already have some universities that have shown an interest to be a part of the Programme, it looks that we will probably pass 100 universities in near future. This proof the relevance of the Programme as well as the potential for development.  I am convinced that the Programme is heading into the upcoming years strongly and will continue to be one of the biggest and most sustainable - over time - university co-operations in the world!

Now when 2021 turns to 2022 we are ready to evaluate, follow up, plan for new academic events and projects, we can mention three coming academic events: Rectors´ conference in September in Uppsala, Master Thesis Training in April in Riga and Science and Sail - summer school in July in Kaliningrad. 

Thank you all for this wonderful year. It is an honor to work and collaborate with you colleagues and students. Thanks´ to:  all participating universities, the Rectors and the colleagues being our contact persons, the National Centres and Centre Directors, the Associated Secretariats, the colleagues at the coordinating secretariat, and all active researchers, teachers and students engaged in different roles in projects and different academic events – the BUP exists because of your engagement. 

As always, you as BUP colleagues and students are welcome to contribute with your ideas and knowledge in designing our common BUP future. The coordinating secretariat is eager to start collaborations for 2022!

MERRY CHRISTMAS AND A HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Madeleine Granvik, Director, Associate Professor

News from 2021

Last modified: 2023-01-12