New Milestone: ECIU strengthens joint doctorates with new Framework Agreement

The ECIU Vice Presidents for Research (VPR) Group has developed a common Framework Agreement for Collaborative Doctoral Programmes, enabling ECIU universities to more easily implement joint and double doctoral degrees.

The framework provides a shared structure for the design, supervision, and award of doctoral programmes across the ECIU institutions, helping to reduce administrative complexity and avoid repeated bilateral negotiations.  

Eight ECIU universities have already signed the agreement: Dublin City University (DCU), INSA Group, Kaunas University of Technology (KTU), Linköping University (LiU), Tampere University (TAU), Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB), University of Aveiro (UAveiro), and the University of Twente (UTwente). The other ECIU partners are in the process of signing the document.  

The agreement promotes joint supervision, researcher mobility and access to complementary research environments, with doctoral candidates enrolled in both institutions and benefiting from shared expertise and infrastructure.  

“This Framework Agreement marks an important step in making collaborative doctoral education across ECIU more scalable and effective. By providing a clear and common basis, we are enabling our researchers and institutions to focus on high-quality cooperation rather than administrative complexity,”  underlines John Doyle, Vice President for Research at Dublin City University and Chair of the ECIU VPR Group.

The development of this Framework Agreement reflects ECIU’s commitment to deepening institutional collaboration and enhancing joint academic offers within the network. By enabling more structured and scalable doctoral cooperation, the initiative supports the creation of interconnected research environments across Europe, fostering talent development and help building towards the European Research Area and realising the fifth freedom on the free movement of knowledge, research, and innovation as proposed by Enrico Letta.

For more information, you can write an email to info@eciu.eu