European Universities - Development of deep institutional transnational cooperation

The ‘European Universities’ initiative is part of the ‘Partnerships for Excellence’ support provided in the framework of the new Erasmus+ Programme. This initiative has an ambitious mandate aimed to trigger and deepen unprecedented levels of institutional cooperation between higher education institutions, making it systemic, structural and sustainable. It aims to encourage the emergence of bottom-up alliances of universities across Europe, which will enable students to combine studies in several countries.

In line with the priorities of the European Education Area by 2025, these European Universities intend to:

• Promote common European values and a strengthened European identity by bringing together a new generation of Europeans able to cooperate within different cultures, languages, and across borders, sectors and academic disciplines;

• Reach a substantial leap in quality, performance, attractiveness and competitiveness of European higher education institutions, and contribute to the European knowledge economy, employment, creativity, culture and welfare by making the best use of innovative pedagogies and striving to make the knowledge square a reality. ‘European Universities’ will be key drivers to boost the quality of higher education and where possible to strengthen its link to the research and innovation landscape in Europe and its outreach towards the society and economy.

To achieve this, the present call Topic ERASMUS-EDU-2024-EUR-UNIV-1 (Topic 1) will provide support for applicants wishing to establish deep institutional transnational cooperation in a ‘European Universities’ alliance.