ECIU University in the making: Raising awareness about ECU University – and broadening its reach

ECIU University is all about opportunities – whether we’re talking community-building events, digital spaces, courses for students or capacity-building activities for teachers. But behind these processes is one more crucial step that has set many ECIU University journeys in motion already.  

The team of KTU-based Work Package 9 (WP9), also known as Marketing and Communication, works to raise awareness about ECIU University and its opportunities across various mediums and communication channels. Its goal is to reach students, teachers, researchers and other community members – encouraging them to get involved and ensuring the efforts of their colleagues across the Alliance are seen.  

We met with Gerda Jakutyte, WP9 lead, and Sandra Antanavičienė, former WP9 lead and current Marketing and Communication Lead for ECIU University, to discuss what the team has achieved during the last four years – and how WP9’s efforts made ECIU University opportunities more visible to community members.  

Question:  How would you describe the main goal of WP9?

Gerda Jakutyte: The main goal of WP9 is to help raise awareness of ECIU University and encourage students, teachers, staff and external stakeholders to take advantage of the opportunities that our European University alliance provides.  

At WP9, we achieve this through the means of marketing and communication. But it’s also a result of joint efforts – with other work packages supporting community engagement, sharing Alliance’s milestones, working on visuals and more. For example, our colleagues create learning opportunities and organise ECIU University-wide events and workshops, while we at WP9 make sure that the information about these activities is clear, correctly branded and reaches our target audience, in whatever format and communication channels they prefer.

It’s all connected: we rely heavily on the Work Packages that create all these offers and opportunities, and they rely on us to raise awareness.

Q: Reaching so many people across Europe – all in different universities, at different stages of their paths and with different goals – is quite a goal. And WP9 has been working towards it since 2019, when ECIU University was created. How has this journey been unfolding?

Sandra Antanavičienė: In 2019, Kaunas University of Technology took charge of the work package for dissemination. During these first years, we established a solid foundation for current marketing and communication activities. Foremost, the new logo and brand identity, followed by our LinkedIn account.  

Additionally, we created a WP9 team of communication and marketing experts, also known as Points of Contact, with representatives at all member universities. They became the ones to hold the ‘front lines’ and communicate ECIU University activities locally, at their home universities, where most of our target audience is. Together, we created a strong marketing and communication team – which is something I’m both proud and thankful for.

In 2022, when the current ECIU University phase began, we started gradually building upon the existing foundation, establishing new communication channels and strengthening both central and local marketing and communication teams.

Q: What kind of build-up are we talking about?

Gerda: For example, the Instagram account, which has become one of the main tools for engaging with students. It now has almost 2,000 followers and is still growing. The LinkedIn account is no less important. It has close to 6,800 followers and a 7–10% engagement rate, compared with up to 3.6% for university accounts globally.

Together with WP6 [the Digital Experience platform team], we also developed a new, tailor-made and secure newsletter platform. Now, our newsletter, which informs the community about learning opportunities, events and news, has 15000 subscribers and counting.  

Additionally, ECIU University’s presence on ECIU member universities’ campuses and in local communication channels is stronger than ever – maps, info desks,  local events, you name it. WP9 points of contact and their contribution played a huge role in that.

Overall, in almost 4 years since 2022, more than 3000 marketing and communication activities were implemented across both central and local channels.

Q: With so much done already, are there any milestones that stand out to you the most?

Sandra: In 2025, we ran a survey at 12 member universities to measure the community’s awareness of ECIU University. The results showed that 50 percent of the internal audience, such as students and staff, have participated in ECIU University activities or at least heard of it.  

It’s a great result for a 6-year-old brand established just before the pandemic hit. Moreover, our 12 members have hundreds of thousands of students in total, with new people coming every year and constant communication needed. ECIU University also competes for attention with various programmes at local universities, so these results should not be underestimated.

Q: What do you think helped the ECIU University brand grow so much?

Gerda: One example is the Student Ambassadors Programme – a WP5 initiative to which WP9 has also contributed. WP9 activities have benefited a lot from it, from having someone to give feedback on our communication to producing more user-generated content. Collaboration between WP9, WP5 and ambassadors also gave our social media and website a more personal touch, making them more appealing to students.

Sandra: Strong visual identity – logos, shapes and colours – also played one of the key roles. Its constant presence in various channels, centrally and locally, truly helps the ECIU University brand grow and become recognisable among different audiences. It’s the glue that holds different activities together and ensures the longevity of communication.  

The goal of the visual identity is to ensure that ECIU University is perceived not as a temporary project, but as something built for the long term, something that connects individual universities and their communities as a single community, one true European University with its distinguished identity.

Q: Speaking of impact. What impact have WP9 and ECIU University had on you?

Sandra: I have dedicated 7 years to ECIU University, which is a lot in the fast-paced marketing industry. What drew me in was a rare opportunity to develop a brand from an almost blank page – and given that ECIU University was one of the first 17 European University Alliances, my colleagues and I were venturing into the unknown as we got started.

We worked across cultures, countries and personalities. We had to solve operational and strategic challenges; we had to be daring and creative. It was very enriching professionally.

Gerda: I began my ECIU University journey as a Point of Contact at KTU while studying for my bachelor’s degree. Since then, I have finished my master’s in advertising management and become a WP9 lead. It was a great way to grow.

I got to apply my theoretical knowledge, communicate with different people, from students to policymakers, and learn crucial leadership skills from Sandra. I’m also very grateful for our incredible team, including content editor Anastasiya, social media manager Lina, and designer Ona. We faced and solved many challenges together – it was a great ride.

Q: With the current phase ending, Lodz University of Technology will be taking over WP9 from Kaunas University of Technology. Looking back at all that has been achieved, how do you hope to see the Work Package in the future?  

Sandra: I’m really proud of how far ECIU University has come. It went from a very new, mostly unknown brand in 2019 to one that is now gaining awareness not only internally, among our students and staff, but also internationally, among other university alliances and higher education experts.

We built a strong basis for marketing and communication activities: good awareness level, strong visual identity, established communication channels and proven operational processes. In the next two years, the new team will get to refine these good practices.  

Long-term brands are built with patience and constant presence. So, hopefully, ECIU University will continue to grow and prosper for many years to come.

Interview by Anastasiya Bukhtiarova