Dear HUMANE Members,

I would like to wish you all a belated Happy New Year!

Changes to HUMANE in 2016

2016 will be a very important year of change for HUMANE. I would like to take this opportunity to bring you up to date on the developments in the HUMANE 2.0 transformation process. HUMANE 2.0 is the name we have given to the process that we started at the Round Table last year in Berlin - it is the renewal of HUMANE to a more dynamic association both at the level of it’s core membership and to be able to offer professional support to the wider institution through expanding our activities. I am attaching the paper presented at the Round Table for your information.

The Round Table agreed that the Executive Committee could go ahead with the process and the key points to bring you up to date are:

- HUMANE has had two very positive meetings with our Winter School partner, EFMD, about deeper collaboration to offer joint activities in the form of professional training and seminars. We hope to announce our first joint seminar to take place in the autumn of this year shortly.
- HUMANE is also looking into ways of offering new member-only services. We would like to offer activities uniquely for our core members, not open to anybody else.
- HUMANE will look for a new part-time Associate Director to drive these new activities forward.

HUMANE Associate Director - Call for applications

The new Associate Director would take over the responsibilities of the Network Manager from July 1st. He/She would also be in charge of the development of the new services and activities. Today we are launching the recruitment process by sending the announcement to you, our HUMANE members, and distributed among our partnership organisations.  The announcement can be downloaded with this link: Associate Director - please feel free to circulate this to any colleagues that may be interested. As we need the successful candidate to be in place as soon as possible to enable a smooth transition, the closing date for applications is 29 February.

Changes in the Executive Committee

Our Colleague Paul Jankowitsch from the Technische Universtität Wien has stepped down due to his new position as the Chairman of the Board of Directors of the RESAVER Consortium. We are delighted to welcome our friend and colleague Kanzler Jens Apitz from Universität Constant who has taken over this position with the strong support from the members of his constituency. We thank Paul for his excellent work and warmly welcome Jens to the Executive Committee.

Events in Spring 2016

The next HUMANE Seminar will be organized together with the Ca’ Foscari University in Venice Italy from April 22 to 23. The theme The Shape of Things to Come: System and institutional responses to higher education marketisation reflects the major changes European Universities face when entering the global markets. We have excellent set of speakers sharing their experience - both from our member universities, offshore activities and from private sector partners. This Seminar is selling very well. Please check out the website for more information - here.

Dates and topic for our Annual Conference have also been set. The University of Groningen will host the Conference from June 17 to 18. The conference preparations are already on their way. In Groningen we will also continue our discussion in detail how the HUMANE 2.0 transformation proceeds.  In case you want to contribute to the programme or suggest speakers, do not hesitate to contact our Network Manager Han Borg (networkmanager@humane.eu). Details about the Annual Conference can be found here.

Winter School with EFMD

The 2016 EFMD-HUMANE Winter School will take place in a few weeks time. We received 65 applications this years edition which is remarkable - competition for the places is growing every year. The Winter School will again be chaired by HUMANE’s Phil Harvey and directed by EFMD’s Nadine Burquel. The cooperation with EFMD developed with the Winter School is really excellent and we hope to be launching other events and activities with them as we take HUMANE 2.0 forward.

The Executive Committee would welcome all your comments and advice about the continuing HUMANE 2.0 development. Please do not hesitate to contact me about any of the points raised here (chairman@humane.eu).

Best wishes,

Esa Hämäläinen
HUMANE Chairman
HUMANE asbl
Rue Gachard 88, box 3
1050 Brussels
www.HUMANE.eu