The Twin Transitions
<< Back to the Annual Report 2023-2024
The academic year 2023-2024 was marked by the fast uptake of ChatGPT in universities as well as natural disasters caused by the accelerating climate change. Against this context, our network has renewed its strong commitment to institutional transformations to support the green transition. Our members reflected on how they can accelerate and shape the digital transition such that it can benefit universities in their higher education and research missions and contribute to the green transition.
A digital research agenda for the Twin Transition
In an insight paper, Morten Dæhlen (University of Oslo) has formulated recommendations for a new digital research agenda to accelerate the green transition. He identifies research areas that deserve further investments to make the digital transition greener and to develop digital technologies that will contribute to achieving the objectives of the European Green Deal. The insight paper also calls for re-thinking research and innovation policy to give researchers better incentives to pursue high-risk-high-gain ideas and collaborate across disciplines and countries and with non-academic actors.
The insight paper was launched in September 2023 at an event organised at the Norway House in Brussels. Its recommendations were discussed by members of The Guild as well as representatives of the European Commission, research funding organisations and university leaderships. This was followed by a launch event at the University of Oslo with representatives of the Norwegian research and innovation communities.
In March 2024, Norway’s Ambassador to the United Kingdom, Tore Hattrem, invited Morten Dæhlen and Marion Thain (King’s College London) to present the insight paper and its recommendations in London. A panel, including representatives from both academic and industry communities, stressed their respective commitments to our insight paper’s recommendations and highlighted the importance of collaborative research – across research disciplines, sectors and countries – to achieve the Twin Transition.
Artificial intelligence in universities
AI technologies are becoming increasingly pervasive in our societies, including the higher education sector. The Guild has contributed to discussions on how institutions and policymakers should react to enable universities to reap the benefits of these technologies while preventing their potential negative effects.
During the General Assembly meeting of November 2023 at the University of Oslo, Toomas Asser and Gregor Majdič presented the guidelines developed by the University of Tartu and the University of Ljubljana for the use of AI in higher education and research. In the subsequent discussions, the presidents called for further engagement by The Guild in these questions and endorsed the creation of a task force to develop our position on measures to accelerate in a responsible manner the uptake of AI in research. Since then, a group of leading researchers with expertise in using AI tools in various fields of research, including Social Sciences, Arts and Humanities, have been discussing this topic with, among others, the European Commission’s new unit on AI in science.
A comprehensive approach to sustainability at The Guild Universities
Despite vast efforts pursued by each of the institutions in the support of the green transition, The Guild members identified the need to exchange ideas and discuss best practices. To address this need, the working group on Strategic Leads of Sustainability started meeting regularly in 2022, and at the start of 2024 its members convened in-person to strive to achieve a joint position on success factors and bottlenecks in the green transition. Central to their discussions was the recognition of both achievements and impediments in current initiatives, alongside a shared acknowledgement of the pressing need to adopt more ambitious and bold strategies to propel further progress in the realm of sustainable transitions.
Other articles
Foreword by Acting Secretary-General Ole Petter Ottersen
A moment of educational change
Shaping European framework programmes for R&I
European Research Area in action
Making new forms of Africa-Europe research collaboration a reality
Université PSL joins The Guild
Interview with Henrique Santos, Junior Policy Officer