Isabelle Corbett-Etchevers, Grenoble IAE Graduate School of Management; Université Grenoble Alpes (UGA)
As students, faculty, and university staff across Europe return to campus, very few are aware that their university is likely part of the European University Initiative. Cooperation among European universities was strengthened in 2019 with the launch of European university alliances, a project designed to support the internationalization of European higher education, test action plans, and set priorities for long-term strategic institutional transformation (Estermann et al., 2021).
There are now over 65 European university alliances, comprising more than 570 higher education institutions and 11 million students across Europe. Described as the flagship initiatives of the European University Initiative, they aim to enhance the international competitiveness of higher education in Europe and promote European values and identity through greater mobility. Joint or dual degrees with different European universities, as well as the European Student Card, were developed with this in mind.
These initiatives among European higher education institutions are key to forging a European identity and developing essential skills in the face of growing global competition and societal challenges. Europe’s higher education strategy is built on two pillars: education and research and innovation.
The two pillars of universities: teaching and research
In terms of education, the Erasmus student mobility program for education, vocational training, youth, and sports is undoubtedly the best-known EU initiative. Launched in 1987, Erasmus has now evolved into Erasmus+. The program paved the way for the Bologna Process, which began in 1999 when 29 countries expressed their commitment to enhancing the competitiveness of the European Higher Education Area through the gradual creation of a unified educational space. This led to the standardization of higher education degrees into the 3-5-8 cycle (Bachelor’s–Master’s–Doctorate) and the development of the European Credit Transfer System (ECTS).
As for the second pillar, framework programs to promote cooperation in research and innovation have been in place since 1984 and have evolved into the Horizon research funding programs.
A single, borderless market for research
In 2000, the European Commission launched the European Research Area (ERA). Echoing the “four freedoms” of the European single market—the free movement of goods, capital, and labor; and the freedom to establish businesses and provide services—the ERA is described as “a single, borderless market for research, innovation, and technology across the EU where countries come together to improve their research policies and systems, and where there is free movement of researchers, knowledge, and innovation.” This fifth freedom was further emphasized in the Letta policy report (April 2024), named after former Italian Prime Minister Enrico Letta.
Focusing on ERA’s objective, the current Horizon Europe program (2021–2027), with a budget of 93.5 billion euros, aims to “facilitate collaboration and strengthen the impact of research and innovation in developing, supporting, and implementing EU policies while tackling global challenges.”
Bridging the two pillars and accelerating the transformation of European universities
Horizon Europe seeks to bridge the two pillars underpinning higher education by integrating research and innovation into the European University Initiative.
Among the funded projects, aUPaEU 2 has brought together five universities belonging to two alliances— Epicur European University and Unite! (University Network for Innovation, Technology, and Engineering)—to develop a modern-day agora, a shared digital space for researchers, businesses, and citizens, with the aim of enhancing collaboration, strengthening relationships, and transferring knowledge to the economy. The acceleration services currently under development are as diverse as the potential users. These include a directory listing researchers’ areas of expertise, access to funding, collaboration opportunities, guidelines for researchers’ career management, open science, and gender equality. Mirroring common research project management practices, each member university is responsible for a specific work package and contributes deliverables to the European Commission, which are intended to ultimately inform higher education policy.
Early findings from interviews and focus groups with various users highlight the potential opportunities offered by the digital Agora, but also the challenges that must be addressed to foster sustainable collaboration in research and innovation across universities.
Short-term funding versus long-term transformation
Like most projects under the European University Initiative, aUPaEU is a five-year pilot project. This short-term timeframe is intended to allow for experimentation and flexibility.
However, this conflicts with the goal of fostering long-term strategic institutional transformation. The uncertainty surrounding the end of the five-year funding period makes it difficult to establish a sustainable governance model and strategy for collaboration in research and innovation.
Enabling Online Trust
Trust is at the heart of collaboration. Traditionally, academic conferences, lab visits, and word of mouth have fostered personal connections and research collaboration. While online platforms can help facilitate knowledge-sharing processes, trust-based knowledge sharing still depends on offline interaction (Aalbers and Whelan, 2021). Finding the right balance between online and offline connections will be essential. The fragmentation of digital infrastructure—with numerous platforms and tools already in use—raises questions about the Agora’s added value. Ease of use and compatibility with existing tools will be key to its adoption.
Visibility and Engagement
University alliances are reshaping European higher education without most of their stakeholders—students, faculty, and staff—even realizing it. Beyond a core group of actively engaged contributors to the work packages, alliances—with their complex governance structures—remain poorly understood and detached from the reality of day-to-day operations. Differences in national education systems, the prevalence of local concerns, and cultural and language differences (Taylor, D. A., & Corbett-Etchevers, I., 2025) make it challenging to foster a sense of collective identity across European universities.
Yet it is precisely this awareness of shared values— such as a commitment to inclusion and diversity, innovation, the green transition, and high-quality higher education—that can pave the way toward a truly transnational European University.
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Isabelle Corbett-Etchevers, Assistant Professor of Human Resource Management, Grenoble IAE Graduate School of Management; Université Grenoble Alpes (UGA)
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.