Blended Intensive Program "Carbon Footprint Reduction Initiatives in EULiST Universities

In June 2025, NTUA delivered the Erasmus+ Blended Intensive Programme "Carbon Footprint Reduction Initiatives in EULiST Universities", organised by the School of Mechanical Engineering within the EULiST Alliance under the academic coordination of Prof. Irene Koronaki. The programme combined three online lectures on 4, 11 and 18 June 2025 with an intensive on-site phase from 21 to 30 June 2025, hosted across both the Zografou Campus and the historic Patission Complex of NTUA, and brought together students from all EULiST partner universities LUT, TU Wien, BUT, JU, LUH, IMT, STU and UnivAQ. Conducted in English and awarding 4 ECTS, it covered carbon footprint monitoring methodologies, Life Cycle Assessment and dedicated LCA software tools, renewable energy sources, building decarbonisation strategies, circular economy principles (under the auspices of NTUA’s UNESCO Chair on Green Innovation and Circular Economy), and EU regulatory frameworks on carbon footprints for university campuses.

Following a challenge-based learning and design-thinking approach, students worked in interdisciplinary groups on carbon footprint reduction projects that were developed and defended at the close of the on-site phase. The on-site activities made full use of NTUA’s experimental infrastructure, the THERMOLab facilities, the 3D Thermal Energy Hub and the Smart Prototype Building Living Lab, complemented by site visits to the historic buildings of the Patission Complex, attendance at the World Refrigeration Day 2025 event, and cultural activities at the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Centre and the Acropolis Museum. Explicitly aligned with the European Green Deal, SDG 7 (Affordable and Clean Energy) and the European Education Area’s "Green Education" Focus Topic, the programme confirmed NTUA’s capacity to host high-impact, alliance-wide academic mobility programmes and established the operational and pedagogical foundation on which subsequent editions are now being developed.