Last month, on 6 July at 6pm CET, the members of ENGAGE.EU’s Student Circle got together online for the closing ceremony following their first joint assignment: the development of a recommendation framework for societal outreach activities in higher education from a student perspective.

This marked the culmination point of a series of seven weekly meetings of students coming from all ENGAGE.EU universities. Additionally, the Circle was planned as an opportunity for students to build a European network across different countries and universities with almost no external costs involved.

The seven workshop sessions followed a similar structure: each one opened with a quick student presentation from one ENGAGE.EU university presenting their home country, town, and instutution in a more personal way. This little element helped everyone get to know each other better – but also to get a feeling of the different member universities and their home locations. Following the presentations, students worked in small groups on the session’s specific task and brought back their ideas and findings to the plenum. Results were documented onto a collaborative whiteboard.

Our final societal outreach framework includes several main aspects: communication rewards, guidance, and central structures with different specific recommendations for all member universities. The recommendation framework will be now integrated into the ENGAGE.EU working group, where it will meet the perspectives and recommendations from other stakeholders involved.

It was a fantastic experiment and a true pleasure to get to know each other and work together – and a very nice prelude to a physical meeting, which hopefully will come very soon.