EUNIS (European University Information Systems organisation) has published a call for papers for its 2014 Annual Congress which has the theme “Higher education in the digital era”. 
Organised by the ITS (information technology systems) and IT offices of Umeå University in Sweden, the congress will take place from 11 to 13 June 2014 at the university. It aims to provide an opportunity “for sharing of experience amongst international specialists, users, researchers, decision-makers, and teaching staff from all over Europe”. 
The programme is divided into six “tracks” with a track chair responsible for the track content. Tracks include: “CIO and IT management”; “Supporting teaching and learning”; “University management systems – BI”; “University cooperation: Consortia, Partnerships and open source”; “Security”; and “Software development”. 
For more information on how to submit a paper, please visit the website. The deadline for submissions is 31 January 2014.

Last week during its Plenary Session in Strasbourg, members of the European Parliament (EP) approved the next long-term EU budget (multiannual financial framework) for 2014-2020, which includes the next EU programmes for research and innovation (Horizon 2020) and for education (Erasmus+). In separate votes, MEPs also approved the different legislative packages for Horizon 2020 and Erasmus+, paving the way for both programmes to begin as planned in 2014. 
As outlined recently in EUA’s newsletter, which detailed the main elements and priorities of both programmes, the Horizon 2020 programme will have a budget of approximately 70 billion euros while nearly 15 billion has been earmarked for Erasmus+, which the European Commission noted was a real-terms increase on the present programmes. Horizon 2020. Erasmus+. More...

The EUA Council for Doctoral Education (EUA-CDE) will hold its next Thematic Workshop from 23 to 24 January 2014 at Dokuz Eylül University, Izmir, Turkey. The theme of the event is “Outcomes of Doctoral Education – Mindset, Research, Innovation”. 
The workshop is the seventh in a series of thematic workshops of the EUA-CDE, which are open exclusively to EUA-CDE members and bring together university leaders, vice-rectors, deans and heads of doctoral schools, researchers, administrators and other actors interested in the development of doctoral education. To register or find out more, please visit the EUA-CDE Thematic Workshop website. More information on the EUA-CDE is available here. More...

EUA recently participated in two international events held under the Lithuanian Presidency of the Council of the EU, which focused on human resources for research including researchers’ careers and gender equality issues. 
The first conference “Invest in researchers – better training and careers using new funding opportunities” took place at the Lithuanian Academy of Sciences in Vilnius from 14 to 15 November. Bringing together a wide range of stakeholders including representatives of EU and national policy bodies, research institutions, higher education institutions, the event aimed to look at the challenges of human resources in research in Europe (with a special focus on young researchers) and examples of good practice from member states. EUA’s Lidia Borrell-Damian was invited to speak on the state of play in doctoral education in Europe. During her presentation, she provided an overview of the general trends in Europe in particular focusing on the development of structured doctoral education within universities. She also spoke about trends in collaborative doctoral education (involving universities and other stakeholders including industry and regional actors) outlining the outcomes of EUA’s work in this area with the FP7 DOC CAREERS II project. Finally, she also underlined EUA’s ongoing work in the area of Smart Specialisation Strategies (RIS3) and the opportunities and key role for universities in the development of these strategies under the new Cohesion Policy framework. 
The second conference entitled “Structural Change Promoting Gender Equality in Research Organisations” (SAPGERIC) took place one week later in Vilnius (21-22 November). The event aimed to look at the “current state of activities at EU level targeted for promoting gender equality in research institutions and enhance the effective dialogue and knowledge sharing between academia, research institutions, funding agencies, researchers, policy makers and society”. EUA’s President Professor Helena Nazaré participated in the event, speaking in a panel discussion on “How to make the collaboration among stakeholders implementing structural change in research institutions and universities effective and sustainable”. During the discussion, she outlined EUA’s ongoing work in the area of gender equality strategies particularly within the framework of the Memorandum of Understanding signed with the European Commission in July 2012, on working towards the European Research Area goals, which revealed in an EUA member survey that over 80% of the respondent universities have put in place institutional policies promoting gender equality. More information on the event is available here and EUA understands that recommendations from the event are due to be sent to the Council of the EU. More...