The ESEU
Project

The ESEU-project is relevant for universities that wish to overcome obstacles to achieve a deep and long-term cooperation at the European level, e.g. to make common strategic decisions, experiment joint recruitment and design joint curricula.

The project is also relevant for policy-makers at the national and European level to support the improvements of available legal instruments and to deliver on the needs of European University Alliances.

The project started on 1 March 2023 and will run for one year, with a budget of 250.000 euro and with 28 partners. ECIU will work closely together with its member universities, national authorities and European organisations such as European University Alliances 4EU+, Una Europa, EU-Conexus, Charm-EU and the European Grouping of Territorial Cooperation (EGTC): Eucor.

After formulating use cases about why a European University Alliance need a legal status, the project will analyse legal structures in relation to the use cases in Spring 2023. The national context in relation to the selected legal structures will also be analysed through interviews targeting all ministries that are partner to, or support, the ESEU project during summer.

All data that will be collected will feed into a final analyse of the most relevant instrument for a legal status, that will be presented in a paper and at a midterm-workshop in October.

Next, the project will pilot suitable legal instruments and take the first steps for implementation of a legal status by ECIU University. Also, a roadmap will be formulated to suggest improvements of the available legal instruments or the proposal for a new instrument needed to deliver on the needs of European University Alliances. The project results will be presented and discussed at a final event in February 2023.

Are you interested to learn more about the project? You can contact olga.wessels@eciu.org for more information.