The mission of NeurotechEU is to coordinate research within the broader field of neuroscience and to inform the general public about it. Among the objectives of the partnership based on the joint participation of economic operators, society and university communities, priority is given to promoting cooperation and to the pooling of resources. A further goal through encouraging the mobility of students and teachers is the establishment of a common university campus across national borders based on joint courses and joint degrees in order to strengthen a common European identity and European values by fortifying the international competitiveness of European institutions of higher education.
At the inter-disciplinary university event held on May 13, several presentations were delivered to the audience by scholars in the humanities.
“Currently, there are three institutes at the Faculty of Humanities that participate in the implementation of the program. These are the Institute of Psychology, the Institute of Educational Studies and Cultural Management, and the Institute of English and American Studies. The joint research topics that they contribute to include, for example, the relationship between humans and robots, the psychology of robots, inquiry into the issue of depression and the academic progress and labor-market opportunities of students with developmental disorders of the nervous system,” said Associate Professor Levente Takács, Deputy Dean for Educational Affairs of the Faculty of Humanities and faculty-level coordinator of the NeurotechEU program, to hirek.unideb.hu.
The next upcoming event of the NeurotechEu program series is going to be a conference held at the end of June, the topicality of which lies in the pandemic situation. The Institute of English and American Studies of the Faculty of Humanities is making arrangements for an online discussion in English and Hungarian on June 26-27, 2021, by the title A gondoskodás válságai: Pandémiakultúra, biopolitika és kultúrorvostan [Crises of Care Conference: Pandemic Culture, Biopolitics and the Medical Humanities].
In addition to belonging to the international project, this event will be hosted in the framework of a Hungarian research program as well. The topic of Eszter Ureczky’s (Assistant Professor of the Department of British Studies, Institute of English and American Studies, Faculty of Humanities, University of Debrecen) post-doctoral research supported by Új Nemzeti Kiválóság Program [New National Excellence Program of the Ministry for Innovation and Technology] is the examination of infectious diseases from the aspect of cultural studies in the light of recent events.
The conference will be opened by Professor Donald E. Morse, the editor-in-chief of the periodical Hungarian Journal of English and American Studies. During the course of the two days of the event, there will be two plenary lectures and twenty-nine presentations delivered altogether in eight different panels on a variety of topics in the fields of bioethics, biopolitics, literature, film and media. The participants of the conference will have “arrived” (virtually) at the University of Debrecen from as many as eleven different countries, ranging from the Philippines to the United States. There is also going to be a round-table discussion in Hungarian on the topic of care from the aspects of sociology, theology, psychiatry, literary history and popular culture.
The academic discussion will be concluded with a poetry recital session, in which seven poets (including two physicians from Debrecen) will be reading their poems on embodiment, the experience of disease and care.
The organizers hereby request those who wish to participate as a member of the audience to register at med.hum.hun@gmail.com by June 25.
Meeting of the rectors of NeurotechEU
József Tőzsér, Vice Rector for Health Industry Innovation and Training of the University of Debrecen, and Orsolya Gregán, the manager of the NeurotechEU project in Debrecen, also participated in an online meeting held for the rectors of the partner universities.
There were three sessions held altogether, where they discussed the achievements of the association so far, as well as the challenges lying ahead of the universities. Another topic sorted out was about the priorities of the universities concerning the future activities of NeurotechEU, but the rectors also exchanged their ideas about how to improve cooperation and how to open up the association for other universities to join.
At the meeting, yet another batch of fields reviewed included virtual education, mobility and the so-called blended mobility as well as learning centers and the channels of cooperation between them. The participants agreed that the best way to launch joint education programs would be to involve those who are currently in the doctoral training and to introduce the system of micro-certificates.
“It was evident for all of the partner institutions that NeurotechEU continues to be a multidisciplinary project, which has to be open for the entire university community. It is not a simple task to coordinate the work of different universities, yet it is very important to create possibilities for cooperation,” said Orsolya Gregán.
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