On the 18th of April over 50 people joined the online event, in which prof. dr Jantine Schuit, the Vice-Rector Magnificus of Tilburg University gave a keynote speech. She declared herself to be an ambassador of this research community, saying: ‘This innovative platform helps people to connect. It has the potential to reduce the amount of time spent on many core activities. And it can encourage a culture of cooperation, of fun and sharing.’ She also explained how the community is an essential part of the ENGAGE.EU alliance:
The ENGAGE.EU alliance was founded on the power of collaboration to study and provide solutions to societal problems. At the core of this “community” approach are the benefits of bringing together curious scholars, relevant stakeholders, resourceful societal partners, and citizens.
Improving the chances of inspirational new ideas
After this, community manager Rianne Strijker, shared some statistics of the rapid growth in the past 6 weeks and the nice spread among partner universities and research themes. Prof. Henning Hillmann from the University of Mannheim then entertained us with anecdotes of how collaboration between researchers used to happen in the past, and explained how the platform greatly improves the chances of generating fresh ideas and innovative and interdisciplinary collaboration. The platform then was festively opened by dr. James Small of Tilburg University, task lead of the international team who built this platform, after he thanked several people who contributed to it’s success. He also indicated that this festive launch of the community platform is only the starting point of the ENGAGE.EU research community. All researchers can now join the platform and fill it with interesting events, articles and collaboration opportunities. We are very much looking forward to the future and many innovative research collaborations.