Una Europa Student Board: "We want to support students from diverse backgrounds to contribute their perspective."

Raul: In January 2023, I started an Erasmus exchange at Helsingin Yliopisto/Helsingfors universitet and there I recognised the flag of Una Europa, which I had previously seen in Bologna. From then, I started to be curious about Una Europa.

Then in October 2023 I was elected to the Council of Students at Università di Bologna, which also gave me the opportunity to sit on the Una Europa Student Board, alongside a student elected by the Una Europa Local Student Task Force (LTF) in Bologna. By sitting on the Council of Students and the Student Board, my objective is to create a link between student issues in Bologna and in Una Europa, taking what I’m doing now on the local level to the European level. Last October, after exactly one year on the Student Board, I was elected Co-Chair along with Ílon.

Ílon: I participated in the Una Europa Student Congress 2023 in Helsinki, which was a really amazing experience where I made a lot of connections with students from different universities who participated in their Una Europa Local Student Task Force or the Student Board. From there I started to understand what Una Europa was.

When I returned from Helsinki, I started getting involved in trying to organise an LTF at my university. At that time, our two Student Board members were incredibly busy and so I stepped in to help; I proxied for one member at the Una Europa General Assembly in Dublin [in December 2023], and then at the end of 2023 I was nominated to replace them as a member of the Student Board.

Ílon: The Student Board has a lot of potential to facilitate really amazing projects and develop new ways of connecting people. I had a really amazing time in Helsinki and I was able to connect with a bunch of different people from all over Europe, which was really wonderful. Because I’m not from Europe myself, and Ireland has an interesting relationship with the concept of Europe, it’s really nice to be part of the alliance and to set up new projects, particularly bridging the gap between staff and students.

Raul: After two years on Bologna’s Council of Students and one year on the Una Europa Student Board, I have a lot of experience with different projects and how to bring students’ ideas forward. I think the objective of Una Europa is to create a future where everyone is included and has the opportunity to bring their own idea, from their own background, and I can help with this.

Ílon: We want to try and facilitate more connections between the LTFs at our partner universities and really cultivate a stronger passion for it, so that students have a way to get involved in the alliance in an inclusive way. I’m quite passionate about this; I think that when we talk about Europe, we need to make an intense effort to include all Europeans. We’re trying to make sure that people of colour feel welcome the alliance, disabled people feel welcome in the alliance, queer people feel welcome, to really understand the broad range of people that are part of Europe and of Una Europa.

This is also why we are discussing student compensation in the Student Board – for many students in Europe, the cost of living is a key issue, so we are trying to think of ways to support our students and ensure accessibility, so that students from diverse backgrounds can bring their perspective into Una Europa.

Raul: When we talk about compensation, we are not only talking economically but also other ways to recognise that representing students takes time away from studies. In the case of Bologna, other options include scholarships and ECTs.

Ílon: We’re keen to make sure the LTFs feel supported by the Student Board and that we are giving them as many opportunities as we can. We’re looking at ways to connect the LTFs so that we can really make it clear that Una Europa offers really great opportunities, as well as funding for amazing projects that students can develop on their own. We hope that this will help to ground Una Europa more for students, as this can be a difficult thing to do.

We are also focused on building on past structures and making sure we [the Student Board] aren’t going back to square one every year. We want to respect the work that’s come before. So we are talking about our onboarding processes and how to make sure projects are maintained.

Raul: Building these structures in Una Europa is important because we started this journey in 2019, we are only five years old. [The alliance] is a structure that we are still building, we are living in the moment of building. So I think it’s really important to build a strong structure for our Student Board, and with the LTFs. This will also help people to have this feeling of belonging – if you involve people, share the work, and create a good structure.

Raul: After Covid, I think our generation of students wants to talk more about the idea of the university and they want to be more involved. Una Europa gives us the opportunity to do this.

From my perspective, the opportunity to work with professionals and professors from 11 leading universities is great. You can develop specific soft skills and make good connections. For example, I discussed a document developed by the Student Board with the Director of my university. I think there is a culture of listening to students and their ideas in Una Europa.

Ílon: I think the fact that we can have meetings with the Board of Directors and integrate our ideas into the student engagement work, as well as relevant Self-Steering Committees and Clusters, is really special. People are interested in hearing and understanding the student voice – the Student Engagement team, in particular, has a lot of passion for involving students. The fact that there are a lot of people in Una Europa that really want to hear the student opinion and are ready and willing to engage with the Student Board is definitely the strongest part, in my opinion.