Abstract:

In 2019, the European Commission announced funding for 17 European universities’ alliances under European Universities Initiative, aiming at strengthening the collaboration in long-term higher education goals and fostering European culture. Among the selected alliances, 8 promote the cooperation between the field-specific and young universities, while 9 are comprehensive university alliances that bring together European universities of different regions, sizes, and ages.
This article aims at exploring the similarities and differences of eight comprehensive university alliances selected by the European Commission for the three-year funding pilot. We use the secondary data analysis to compare the members, goals, outcomes, and activities of these alliances.

The results of the analysis show that the comprehensive universities’ alliances share a sharp focus on inter-partner mobility activities, innovative learning solutions, and digitalization. However, the principal differences are seen in the key deliverables of the three-year pilots, regional leadership activities, and stakeholders (associates) involved. Based on the results of the comparative analysis, we conclude that the new comprehensive alliances formed by Europe’s leading higher education institutions are strong cases for enabling the continent-wide campuses, achieving the synergy of research, as well as stimulating and transferring member universities’ innovations to achieve the competitive advantage of Europe’s higher education system.

Keywords:

University alliances, projects, European higher education, cooperation, EU funding, competitiveness.