ERUA - European Reform University Alliance
What is ERUA?
The “European Reform University Alliance” (ERUA) is a consortium of eight European reform universities committed to exploring innovative approaches in research, teaching, and institutional advancement. As part of the European Universities Initiative (EUI), one of the key initiatives of the European Commission, ERUA aims to advance the development of a European Education Area and the implementation of the European Strategy for Universities.
ERUA is unique due to its geographical diversity and focus on social sciences, humanities, and arts, while also integrating perspectives from science, technology, engineering, and medicine to address contemporary challenges in Europe. Being a network of reform-oriented universities, we strive towards fostering critical thinking of the university community by reflecting upon, assessing and advancing alternatives to current models in higher education. We are a community that wants to promote our critical ideas and develop our sustainable concept of academia, while defending a strong student-centered focus at the core of our academic reform approach and practices.
We view ERUA universities as standing ‘on a critical edge’– both in terms of values and geography, due to our expertise in educational strategies and partnering nations. Now, stronger together with our common vision, we are in a position to better contribute to the development of a sustainable society, and to promote European values.
All eight partners strongly believe that universities must give all demographics the agency to tap into novel ways of thinking in response to the structural transformations happening in our contemporary world. With this shared common vision in mind, the European Reform University Alliance (ERUA) will continue to enable the development and the refinement of ideas leading to international and interdisciplinary learnings and innovations.
Through its mission, vision and core values ERUA strives to become a “role model” for other alliances in terms of diversity, inclusion and ethos on participation, but also to develop educational programmes and research projects geared towards societal impact.
The ERUA2 Network, with a grant of 12.8 million euros, is led by the University Paris 8 (France), with the SWPS University of Social Sciences and Humanities (Poland) as members and partners of the initiative, the University of Macerata (Italy), the University of Mykolas Romeris (Lithuania), the European University of Viadrina (Germany), the University of the Aegean (Greece), the New Bulgarian University (Bulgaria), and the Universities of Roskilde (Denmark) and Konstanz (Germany).
Former Members and Associated Partner
Our mission and vision
We, the European Reform University Alliance (ERUA), have set up and developed our consortium around our foundational principles as a reform alliance. By pooling our individual strengths and past achievements, we will increase our societal impact by creating a powerful academic hub for critical and innovative contribution to a free, more equitable and democratic Europe. We believe that to shape peaceful, just, and sustainable futures, higher education and research must be transformed.
By bringing together academics from Europe’s East and West, North and South, and welcoming students from top and lower socio-economic deciles, from rural and urban, insular and mainland settings, local and global backgrounds, ERUA aspires over the coming years to create a genuinely integrated European community, in which each university will retain its individual traits while working together to create a common, transformative and long-term vision of education, research, innovation and service to society in Europe.
ERUA is one in a kind amongst European Universities thanks to our focus on the social sciences, humanities and arts. Our public value lies in our capacity to critically reflect and contribute to solving the global challenges of our times with an interdisciplinary perspective, which draws on our ongoing and fruitful dialogue with science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM).
