THE EDTECH PODCAST: ON HR TECH
UNIVERSITY OF BRISTOL DRIVING EDUCATION THROUGH INNOVATION
Reimagine Education is committed to identifying and working with partners at the forefront of educational change, seeking out organisations and academic institutions that are innovating in the fields of teaching and learning.
To this end, we’re delighted to announce that Reimagine Education has partnered with the University of Nicosia (UNIC), the largest university in Cyprus and one of the largest universities in southern Europe that teaches in English. It is a comprehensive university, with particular strengths in medicine, accounting, information technology, law, and international relations, while its recent history is characterised by innovation in new technology and transnational delivery.
UNIC has been instrumental to the internationalisation of higher education in Cyprus and the wider region. It founded Cyprus’s first medical school in collaboration with St. George’s, a constituent college of the University of London. UNIC’s Medical School is now one of the leading medical schools in the region, attracting students from around the world. UNIC has also been a regional pioneer in online education, supporting both its own degree programmes and those of its joint degree partners throughout Europe, while also increasing accessibility to higher education for thousands of graduate students.
More recently, UNIC has undergone university-wide transformation to effectively engage with, and respond to, the current period of tremendously promising technological and societal change (described by many as the “4th industrial revolution”), and is now aiming to focus its research and teaching efforts in this area.
One example of UNIC’s ability to innovate is its blockchain initiative. UNIC has, by most measures and according to most observers, the most advanced initiative in cryptocurrency and blockchain technology in the world. More specifically, UNIC was the first university in the world to: (a) offer a course and degree programme on the topic of cryptocurrency/blockchain technology; (b) deliver graduates from a programme of this type; (c) publish academic certificates and diplomas on the blockchain; and (d) accept bitcoin for tuition.
More broadly, UNIC’s Institute For the Future (IFF) was specifically founded to explore the ways in which technological progress might cause rapidly-accelerating societal change over the coming decades, as a wide range of technologies reach maturity. The IFF currently has a particular focus on three specific technologies – blockchain technology, artificial intelligence, and augmented and virtual reality – and a mandate to explore these topics from an interdisciplinary perspective across all academic disciplines at UNIC.
The above initiatives are a strong testament to UNIC’s commitment to innovation, as a university that shares our drive for change and for reimagining education. We are pleased to have UNIC on board as a supporter of this year’s Reimagine Education Conference.