As students, academics and university personnel across Europe head back to university, very few are aware that their university is likely to be part of the European University Initiative. Cooperation across European universities strengthened in 2019 with the launch of European university alliances, a project supporting the internationalisation of European higher education, testing action plans and setting priorities for long-term strategic institutional transformation (Estermann et al., 2021).
There are now over 65 European university alliances, encompassing more than 570 higher education institutions and 11 million students across Europe. Described as flagships of the European University Initiative, they aim to improve the international competitiveness of higher education in Europe, promote European values and identity through greater mobility. Joint or dual degrees with different European universities, or the European Student Card were developed with this in mind.
