Transforming higher education and research across Europe, the European Universities Initiative faces a critical moment in overcoming its growing pains.
The European Commission published a report on the outcomes and transformational potential of the European Universities Initiative (EUI). This report is an attempt to gauge the impact of the European Universities alliances on the higher education landscape in the last five years.
The EUI emerged in 2017 when the Council adopted Conclusions aiming to establish “by 2024 […] some twenty European Universities’”. These European Universities were to promote European values and identity and to enhance the attractiveness and competitiveness of European higher education. The European Commission’s (EC) 2022 European Strategy for Universities extended this goal to 60 alliances comprising 500 HEIs by mid-2024. This target has since been surpassed: As of December 2025, 65 alliances have been funded, which engage more than 570 HEIs across Europe and beyond, including many Swiss HEIs as well. Additionally, the research and innovation dimension of the alliances has been strengthened, notably through targeted calls under Horizon 2020’s Science with and for Society action (Swafs, see SwissCore article). To take stock of the alliances’ impact so far, the report utilises interviews and surveys, along with data from the new monitoring framework for the EUI, which presents a snapshot of the alliance’s achievements and challenges in 2023.
Overall, the report gives a positive assessment of the alliances’ impact on the competitiveness of the European higher education sector. Firstly, the monitoring data suggests a 400% increase of student mobility within alliances since 2019. This steep increase has several reasons: Many alliances have diversified their offer of mobility formats, branching out from the classic semester-long exchange to include virtual, blended, and short-term mobility formats. Moreover, working together in a long-term and stable collaboration format enabled HEIs to develop shared mobility services, multilateral mobility agreements, and automatic recognition of credits, which simplify administrative processes and encourage mobility. Linked to this is also the broad expansion of learning opportunities: To date, the alliances have established more than 600 joint study programmes and courses, offering more degree choices which integrate inter-alliance mobility into the curriculum.
The report also notes the benefits that the EUI creates for the European research and innovation landscape. Specifically, the authors remark upon opportunities for HEIs to pool resources within their alliance. By leveraging shared resources, equipment, and infrastructure, alliances create efficient environments for research. Wider access to infrastructure, coupled with increased mobility offerings, including during (post-)doctoral training, particularly benefit early-stage career researchers within alliances. Rather than remaining closed off, it is further pointed out how alliances encourage knowledge transfer through increased collaboration with industry and local ecosystems. This is considered to strengthen entrepreneurship and the research sector’s ability to respond to societal and industrial needs, both of which feature highly on the list of European research and innovation priorities. Lastly, alliances also tend to advocate for open science and sharing of research outputs, often piloting innovative approaches and infrastructure for open science. For example, the Arqus alliance developed an Open Science Ambassador network, designating trailblazers of Open Science within the involved organisations.
However, multiple challenges remain, many of which were raised in the position papers by higher education and research stakeholders which the report draws on. First, administrative and legal barriers remain for the effective pooling of resources, data, and infrastructure. To date, only 14 out of 65 alliances have established a legal entity to facilitate the pooling of resources, data, and services among HEIs and there is an expressed need to explore new legal statuses for the alliances. Second, HEIs in alliances struggle to engage all their staff and students in their offerings. On the student side, lack of engagement relates to challenges of reaching underrepresented student groups. For staff, engaging in an alliance is often seen as an additional workload, due to the lack of formal recognition for their contributions to an alliance. Perhaps most importantly, the absence of sustainable funding structures for the EUI is seen as the biggest hurdle to continue and strengthen the impact of the alliances. The report indicates that 95% of alliances are supported by complementary national or regional funding. However, it is noted that different national stipulations for funding risk disturbing the cohesion between alliance members, as these introduce differences between the partners, such as when spending is restricted to the funding country or when members make different contributions to joint costs like common digital infrastructure.
This tension between project-cycle based funding and a unified ambition for the alliances to have a lasting and sustainable impact on the education, research, and innovation landscape is not new (see SwissCore article). The EC is working on an “investment pathway” that would guarantee the ongoing funding of the alliances. EC Executive Vice President Roxana Mînzatu has already pledged her support for the alliances in the Erasmus+ successor programme, which will run from 2028 to 2034. It is also indicated that, to serve the alliances’ mission in research and innovation, synergies with other funding instruments beyond Erasmus+ are being explored by the EC. Swiss HEIs are able to join the EUI as associated partners due to their third-country status since 2022. Since then, they are well represented in 13 alliances, contributing their resources and expertise and often taking on important roles, such as leading work packages in joint projects. The technical differences in status between full and associated partners is an issue which will be further explored by the EC, according to the report. This could effectively enable Swiss HEIs to take on a stronger leadership role in the alliances.