As the Institutional Manager of Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München (LMU), Dr. Ville Leppänen took over the coordination of LMU’s EUGLOH project office in May 2023. His first official trip led him to the EUGLOH Annual Summit, which was held in Lund, Sweden, last June.
EUGLOH [you·glow] - Faces behind the Alliance:
What are your responsibilities within EUGLOH?
I am the LMU Institutional Manager. My position serves as a crucial link between the Alliance, particularly the Secretary-General in Paris, and my colleagues at LMU. So, in other words, I am the central administrative coordinator for EUGLOH at LMU. Additionally, I am responsible for the project office here at LMU, which plays a vital role in organising and financing student and staff exchange activities within the EUGLOH consortium.
What do you particularly enjoy about your new role?
I especially appreciate the international and diverse nature of the tasks. I am constantly in contact with my colleagues at the other EUGLOH partner universities as well as various institutions and staff members here at LMU.
Your first official trip led you to EUGLOH’s Annual Summit in the Swedish city of Lund. What can you tell us about this meeting?
The Annual Summit stands out to me as a pivotal event -- managing to gather together representatives from all EUGLOH partner universities in one location every year. Throughout the rest of the year we mainly communicate digitally and through virtual meetings. At the Summits, we have the rare opportunity to meet in person and engage in effective discussions on current topics and tasks. It was definitely the unique, friendly EUGLOH spirit, and the opportunity to personally meet my colleagues from other partner universities that I enjoyed most about the event. During the workshops, activities and presentations, I gained an overview of how EUGLOH works as an alliance and of how broad the range of topics within the Global Health field is.
Why do you think EUGLOH is important?
The Alliance emerged as part of the European University Initiative, a forward-thinking concept that aims to promote cooperation between European universities in all relevant areas. For us, it is crucial that a prestigious university like LMU participates in such a Europe-wide initiative. Global Health is a highly relevant domain, considering that health concerns us all. Within EUGLOH, the topic is understood in a broad and interdisciplinary manner. This interdisciplinarity not only promotes collaboration between partner universities, but also brings together disciplines and institutions within universities, which may only have had limited interactions before.
This text is a modified and translated extract of the original article (in German), which was published by Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München.