For Alex Arenas, Educationalist at CHARM‑EU and Pedagogical Engineer at the University of Montpellier Teaching and Learning Centre CSIP, educational innovation starts with bringing people together. Over the past three years, Alex has helped connect colleagues across the Alliance to co-create new learning experiences, including CHARM‑EU’s interculturality courses, turning diverse perspectives into meaningful collaboration.
Your CHARM‑EU Experience
How did you first get involved with CHARM‑EU?
While teaching at the University of Montpellier, I stumbled upon a call for a project designed to rethink and reshape European higher education. The ambition to build something truly transformative through CHARM-EU instantly grabbed my attention, so I jumped at the opportunity and applied.
What is your main role within CHARM‑EU?
Day to day, I wear a few hats—whether that’s supporting teachers in the Food track, bringing people together through workshops, or sharing pedagogical practices across the alliance. If I had to pick an initiative that captures the spirit of what I do, it would be the two interculturality courses we created. It all started when Harriet Klåvus from Åbo Akademi reached out, and together we brought in a mix of expert professors from across the alliance to work on both courses. I saw my role as a catalyst: connecting the people, creating the space for them to bounce ideas off one another, and helping turn their shared expertise into concrete learning modules. The courses summarise how at CHARM-EU we collaborate across different languages, academic habits, and working cultures. (Intercultural Communication Short Module [21:44]).
Can you share a moment or experience that best represents what CHARM‑EU means to you?
When Harriet and I were figuring out how to turn the intercultural modules from an idea into reality, we realised online meetings would only get us so far. We decided to tap into CHARM-EU’s ‘networking event‘ scheme to bring the whole team together in the same room. Seeing everyone—with all their different backgrounds, perspectives, and experiences—brainstorm, debate, and build side by side captured the real spirit of CHARM-EU for me: giving us the space and tools to bridge institutional distance and create something lasting together (be it a community, a project or a course on interculturality).
How has your experience with CHARM-EU influenced your professional and/or personal development, particularly through collaboration across universities, cultures, and colleagues within the alliance?
I had already spent years working in international environments, so I went into CHARM-EU believing deeply that co-creation beats working in isolation. What CHARM-EU really challenged in me is the understanding of what it actually takes to break silos. It’s easy to celebrate diversity in theory, but when you bring together different academic hierarchies, national regulations, and working traditions, collaboration becomes a craft. It taught me that real institutional integration isn’t about erasing differences, but learning how to navigate the friction so diverse systems can genuinely pull in the same direction.
Vision & Future
Can you imagine how the intercultural course can be developed in the future?
It is hard to say exactly what the future holds, but I hope these courses give anyone who takes them a reason to pause. How we perceive the world shapes how we act and react toward others. If these modules can offer people a moment of reflection before jumping to conclusions when talking to someone (new or old, co-worker or not), they will have done their job. There are always multiple sides to every story, and our own eyes often make poor evidence.
Where do you see CHARM‑EU heading in the next few years? What excites you about its future?
It’s always tricky to predict the exact path an alliance will take, but my optimism comes down to the people. Across our partner universities, there are dedicated individuals and teams genuinely committed to bringing European higher education closer together. As long as our projects, ideas, and daily actions keep pushing in that direction—breaking isolation and choosing to build together—I have no doubt the alliance will continue to bear fruit.
If you had to describe CHARM‑EU in one word or short phrase, what would it be – and why?
Complex, daring, and eclectic.
It’s complex because breaking down institutional borders is hard work; daring because it refuses to settle for the status quo in higher education; and eclectic because the diverse mix of backgrounds and perspectives within the alliance is what actually drives our creativity.
Interested in interculturality and collaboration across borders? Discover CHARM‑EU’s Intercultural Preparation course and develop the skills to navigate diverse academic, professional, and cultural environments with confidence.