The first University - Business Forum, attended by more than 280 participants, took place at the end of February 2008 in Brussels. It constitutes the first step in setting up a permanent platform for a structured dialogue between the relevant stakeholders with the aim of facilitating networking and the exchange of good practice between universities and businesses. The event addressed the following main topics:

• Curricular development, and how it can lead to greater employability and an entrepreneurial mindset among graduates;
• Continuing education, and how to explore and improve cooperation between universities and companies in the provision of training/retraining programmes;
• Modernisation of governance structures within universities;
• Development of mobility (of both students and staff) between academia and businesses.

DG Education and Culture