The European Universities initiative proposed by the European Commission in 2019 is designed to significantly strengthen mobility of students and staff, and foster the quality, inclusiveness and competitiveness of European higher education. Unite! is one of the 44 European University Alliances that are funded by Erasmus+. Unite! is also financed by the H2020 programme “Science with and for Society” allowing us to create an integrated, shared and long-term research and innovation (R&I) strategy.

What does Unite! do? 

Unite! will create a new model for European university education by development of unique joint programs that combine multidisciplinary, multilingual and multicultural elements into common curricula and flexible study pathways. In the future, the aim is also to create study paths in which students can combine studies in different European countries leading to a joint degree, or a European degree.  A strong emphasis is on the development of more flexible, short-term mobilities, as well as blended and hybrid models for student exchange. Excellence in teaching and learning is the foundation on which Unite! builds all of its actions and activities, extending to degree-seeking students at all levels, to non-traditional students, and life-long learners. To tackle grand societal challenges we focus our educational activities especially on energy, industry 4.0, artificial intelligence and entrepreneurship. We collaborate with the local industry and entrepreneurial ecosystems. See here for more detailed descriptions of the expert communities. 

Additional projects 

To broaden and diversify the fields of cooperation among the members of the alliance, there is a continuous search for partnership and funding opportunities beyond the Erasmus+ project. 

Currently the following projects are ongoing alongside the main Erasmus+ project:

A University Partnership for Acceleration of European Universities (aUPaEu) The consortium of five academic institution from EPiCUR and Unite! alliances aims to revive the spirit of the agora by fostering collaborative environments that empower stakeholders. 

ED-AFFICHE facilitates the delivery of a joint European degree label. The project consortium is composed of six university alliances. 

GreenChips-EDU is an international project led by TU Graz bringing together six Unite! universities, companies and research institutions with the aim of training urgently needed specialists for the semiconductor industry.

IDEM - Inclusion, Diversity, Equity in Mobility- aims to ensure and facilitate the full participation of students with disabilities, refugee students and first generation students in all mobility programmes between Unite! partner universities.

Unite!.WIDENING aims to be a complementary project extending the outcomes of the already ended UNITE.H2020 project, in particular, to become a role model for a competitive European University Alliance producing top-class R&I and combining it with a virtual and physical seamless inter-university campus, embedded in a network of innovative regions, aiming at a more sustainable world. 

Already completed projects include

Unite.H2020- Towards a shared R&I strategy for Unite!

JPROV project – Joint Programmes: Embedding Virtual Exchange

Contact 

There are altogether some 50 staff members at Aalto who work in the different task forces of Unite!. President Ilkka Niemelä and Vice President for Education Petri Suomala represent Aalto University in the Unite! Governing Platform. Ilkka Niemelä is also Unite! Vice President. Petri Suomala is the legal representative of Unite! at Aalto. Unite! activities at Aalto are headed by Senior Manager Minna-Kaarina Forssén.