Charm-EU: 64 European students meet Thau Basin professionals
Lhe MoxMo (Montpellier cross-thematic mobility) is an Erasmus+ student mobility program organized for students from the five member universities of the European Charm-EU alliance. From April 15 to 26, 64 of them will be in Montpellier and around the Thau Basin to solve six environmental challenges directly linked to the area, in partnership with the Syndicat mixte du bassin de Thau (SMBT).
MoxMo in a nutshell
From five member universities of the European Charm-EU alliance, including the University of Montpellier, 64 students from the international master's program "Global Challenges for Sustainable Development" will be travelling to Montpellier and the Thau Basin to take part in the second edition of MoxMo from April 15 to 26. A key part of their training, which focuses on learning by solving challenges, the MoxMo is an opportunity for students to work in international, interdisciplinary teams. Their objective will be to solve six challenges in line with the region's issues: fishing, sustainable tourism and biodiversity protection.
They will spend the first week in the Thau Basin and the second in Montpellier, where they will meet professionals involved in the challenges at hand (start-ups, farmers, fishermen, associations, etc.), as well as researchers, teachers and specialists. Also this year: a collaboration with Icireward (Unesco water center), which will enable six foreign doctoral students to join the teams working on the challenges of this 2024 edition.
The themes of the six challenges :
- the installation of shellfish tables equipped with solar collectors on the Etang de Thau;
- the installation of AI water quality analysis stations on the Etang de Thau;
- the creation of an 80 km-long pedestrian health trail around the Thau lagoon;
- the development of a project supported by the Local Food Plan to coordinate local food production players;
- the appropriation of subsidized actions (MAEC) by local farmers and stockbreeders;
- a large-scale aquaponics project in conjunction with the University of Montpellier's aquaponics training platform.
MoxMo 2024 highlights:
- Monday April 15, 3pm to 5pm at Théâtre de la Mer (Sète): Students will meet local representatives of the six challenges.
- Friday April 26 from 9am to 12pm and from 2pm to 4pm at the Triolet campus (Montpellier): Presentation of challenge resolutions to a jury of teachers and local professionals.
About CHARM-EU
The Charm-EU alliance of European universities was initiated in 2019 under the impetus of the University of Barcelona under the presidency of its then rector, Joan Elias Garcia, to respond to the first Erasmus + call for projects from European Universities. In June 2019, the Charm EU project was one of the 17 winners, bringing together five partners under the coordination of the University of Barcelona, including the University of Montpellier, Utrecht University (Germany), Trinity College Dublin (Ireland), Eötvös Loránd University Budapest (Hungary). Five European universities have joined the CHARM-EU alliance: Åbo Akademi University (Finland), Würzburg University (Germany), Rhuhr-West University of Applied Sciences (Germany) and the University of Bergen (Norway).
A co-constructed joint Master's degree has been launched by the CHARM-EU alliance in 2021. Entitled "Global Challenges for Sustainable Development", this trans-disciplinary, research-backed curriculum is based on solving challenges in the field that are in phase with society's issues. The CHARM-EU alliance's projects are numerous: a catalog of common international courses, the introduction of micro-credits, the development of a team doctorate concept... Today, only 10% of universities in the 27 member states of the European Union participate in an alliance, yet some 50 European university alliances have already been set up, involving more than 40 French universities.