The Ideas Club is a student-led debate that aims to raise awareness of European values by fostering knowledge about intercultural differences and transcending local, regional, and national identity boundaries. It is organised twice a year and seeks to develop and train European identity and inclusive citizenship competence and skills by providing information about values, human rights, and models of representation and participation.
Students participating in the Ideas Club are provided with a platform to showcase their public speaking abilities, prepare and deliver speeches, and engage in stimulating debates. This empowering experience allows students to take charge of the issues that resonate with them, develop public speaking skills, and exchange ideas as they actively choose the topics and agendas of the events.
The Ideas Club aims to cultivate a generation of informed and engaged citizens who are well-equipped to contribute to the progress of their communities and the broader European landscape. For more information see the following news related to the Ideas Club.
Activities
Past Activities
Ideas Club session at the International Science Festival Gothenburg
On April 17th 2024, the Gothenburg International Science Festival hosted a session on “IDEAS Club: How waves shape history”.
The Ideas Club consists of students from Swedish universities where students lead debates with university colleagues in the Swedish Western region. This is the concluding event where their findings are presented and explored.
The talk was facilitated by Catherine Gillo Nilsson, EUTOPIA MORE Inclusion Group Coordinator at the University of Gothenburg. Among the invited speakers, several professors, researchers and staff from the EUTOPIA Universities were present: Carlotta Pisano (NOVA University Lisbon), Alessia Lorenzon (Ca Foscari University Venice), Jeremy Land, Ram Krishna Ranjan and Karin Jonson (University of Gothenburg). Kerstin von Brömssen (University West) was also there. Together, they discussed the following topics:
- The inputs and exploration exercise on the dynamics of collective memory and historical narratives
- How historical events, cultural movements and social upheavals are remembered and represented over time
- The future of education and learning, migration, trade and globalisation, and film-making practice
- What learnings and experiences come from the Ideas club?
Ideas Club is back for its second edition in Venice
After a first edition edition in October 2023, EUTOPIA launches the second edition of the “Ideas Club”, a student-led debate programme to raise awareness of European values through knowledge and awareness about intercultural differences, transcending local and regional and national identity-pegs, with the objective of developing and training European identity and inclusive citizenship competence and skills through knowledge about values, human rights, models of representation and participation.
The Ideas Club meets twice a year, and each session will produce results in the form of reports, manifestos, or audiovisual material with the conclusions of the debates. The upcoming meeting will take place on April 23 and 24, 2024 at Ca’Foscari University in Venice. The tangible proposals will be made public during the upcoming EUTOPIA Day on May 13th, 2024.
The second edition of the Ideas Club, organised in cooperation with the EUSTT (Eutopia Students Think Tank), will delve around a core concern of our Century: “Climate Change Challenges”. The Ideas Club project will culminate in the summer of 2026 with the celebration of a EUTOPIA Summer School where the outcomes of the different meetings held over these years will be collected.
EUTOPIA Launches IDEAS CLUB
EUTOPIA officially launched the “EUTOPIA Ideas Club: Raising Awareness about Inclusion and Cultural Diversity”, a student-led debate program to raise awareness of European values, intercultural differences, and identity pegs, with the objective of developing a European identity and inclusive citizenship during the BeEUTOPIAn Conference and Erasmus Days Celebration held at CY Cergy Paris University. The discussion was facilitated by Professor Carlotta Pisano from Universidade NOVA de Lisboa (Lisbon, Portugal).
On Thursday 12 October, 2023, the inaugural meeting of EUTOPIA’s Ideas Club brought together approximately thirty students from the ten universities in the Alliance. This initiative explores various topics with the aim of increasing awareness of European values, intercultural differences, and identity. The first session focused mainly on the concepts of Nation, Diversity, and European Identity, as well as the ideas of multiculturalism and interculturalism. The Ideas Club intends to meet twice a year, both in-person and online, and each session will produce outcomes in the form of reports, manifestos, or audiovisual materials with the debate’s conclusions.
To survive in a world of highly cosmopolitan culture and respect each other, it is important to have programmes like these to prepare the students to be tomorrow’s responsible citizens. EUTOPIA as an alliance makes sure that it respects the core value of Inclusion and Diversity in all its initiatives.
Disclaimer
EUTOPIA MORE is co-funded by the European Union under Grant Agreement No. 101089699. Views and opinions expressed are, however, those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Education and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA). Neither the European Union nor EACEA can be held responsible for them.