UNA Europa. The Dream of a Transnational Campus

In June 2015, the rector of the Complutense University of Madrid, Carlos Andradas, granted me the immense honor of appointing me Vice-Rector for International Affairs. Thus began a fascinating professional adventure that took me all over Latin America and other parts of the world, forging and signing international collaboration agreements, managing academic programs beyond our borders, attending highprofile international meetings, and carrying the Complutense’s name around the world. The best baggage I accumulated from that experience was, as it often happens, the personal and institutional relationships because that is what lasts beyond temporary mandates.

One of those international programs that we brought to its maximum splendor between 2015 and 2019 was the Ibero-American Union (UIU; see pages XXXX in this issue); a dream of Ibero-American cooperation; a strategic alliance integrated by the Complutense University of Madrid (UCM), the University of Barcelona (UB), the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), the University of Buenos Aires (UBA), and the University Sao Paulo (USP), with the aim of being a think-tank of high scientific quality, international reference that benefits the recognition of their scientists, professors, and students, as well as the development of Ibero-American culture in the world. I will not address UIU in the following lines, although I will always be grateful to that alliance for its contribution to the internationalization of UCM. Still, UIU also made me know UNAM in-depth and meet my counterpart, Francisco Trigo, with whom I maintain a delightful academic friendship despite time and distance since I left my position in 2019.

ONE OF THE STRENGTHS OF OUR ALLIANCE IS ITS DIVERSITY

THE ORIGIN OF UNA EUROPA
I will focus instead on another dream, this time, an European one. It all started on September 29, 2017, in Oxford. I traveled to this English city as Vice-Rector for International Affairs at UCM to participate in the celebration of the 25^th anniversary of Europaeum (https://europaeum.org/), a network of ninetine universities to which UCM belongs. In one of the breaks between academic sessions, I was approached by Maria Gravari-Barbas, my counterpart from the University of Paris 1-Pantheon-Sorbonne, who told me about a European universities project recently presented by French President Emmanuel Macron in the European Parliament, which the Sorbonne wanted to join with UCM. Her university —she told me— had already contacted three other prestigious universities: the Free University of Berlin, KU Leuven in Belgium, and the University of Bologna. After hours of motivating and exciting conversation, I discussed the matter with my rector, who immediately told me: “We’re in.” The alliance was in motion: we were five prestigious universities sharing the following common elements:

• We have been educating Europe for almost a thousand years.
• We are universities rooted in our cities and cultures.
• We are inextricably linked to the European intellectual tradition.
• Individually, we are large, generalist universities, among the leading research universities in each of our countries, with a worldwide reputation and reach.
• Collectively, we educate more than 350,000 students across our five campuses.
• One of the strengths of our alliance is its diversity.
• That diversity is underpinned by shared principles: interdisciplinarity, internationalization, innovation, interaction, inclusion, and impact.
• We are committed to the promotion of fundamental European values, among which we can count the promotion of peace; the offer of freedom, safety and justice without internal boundaries; achieving sustainable development; the protection and improvement of environmental quality; the promotion of scientific and technological progress; fighting against social exclusion and discrimination; fostering social justice and social protection; strengthening economic, social, and territorial cohesion and solidarity among European Union members; and respecting their linguistic and cultural diversity (see: https://european-union.europa.eu/principles-countries-history/principles-and-values/aimsand-values_es).

Council, and the Commission to come forward with several initiatives, including strengthening strategic partnerships across the EU between higher education institutions (HEIs) and encouraging the emergence by 2024 of some 20 European universities, consisting in bottom-up networks of universities across the EU. This will enable students to obtain a degree by combining studies in several EU countries and contribute to the international competitiveness of European universities (Comisión Europea, 2021). The aim was to educate a new generation of Europeans able to cooperate and work within different European and global cultures, in different languages, and across borders, sectors, and academic disciplines.

These transnational alliances—the member states concluded—will be the European universities of the future.

In February 2018, representatives of the five European universities of the alliance (we had not yet agreed on its name)—Spain’s UCM, Italy’s University of Bologna, France’s University of Paris 1-Pantheon-Sorbonne, Germany’s Free University of Berlin and Belgium’s KU Leuven—met at the Sorbonne to discuss the prospects for the creation of a European university. The name was not difficult to choose from among several proposals: UNA Europa (Universities Alliance, Europe) took on a double connotation in Spanish, beyond the acronym, in its meaning as a numeral suggesting uniqueness and unity.

In addition to the features mentioned above that united us, the conviction that motivated the five institutions is that to promote the structural development of the European Higher Education Area (EHEA) and to strengthen the links between research and education, it is essential to create long-term, sustainable, solid, and dynamic partnerships between European higher education institutions. Universities are appropriate vectors for a new European ambition, supporting European values and preparing for the talents of tomorrow.

A BIG TRANSNATIONAL CAMPUS
The five universities already had a long history of cooperation through student exchange agreements, double degrees, co-supervision of doctoral theses, and joint participation in European-funded projects and networks. But beyond these close ties, the European universities project aimed to create an innovative partnership based on the synergy of the institutions’ disciplines in joint programs and R&D&I projects. Students at European universities would also be able to follow an integrated curriculum in several countries and languages. Thus, during the inaugural summit in Paris, the five rectors and their teams explored the different types of practical actions to be undertaken in education, research, and innovation through student and staff mobility, joint degrees, cooperation in the framework of European calls and networks, co-sponsored academic events, and research projects on interdisciplinary themes. The five universities signed a letter of intent and established a work agenda that could lead, in successive stages, to the construction of a European university. To give a brief idea of what was expressed in this letter of intent, I will quote only the first paragraph:

• A joint and coordinated voice both in the debate and in the international positioning of the major issues that affect and are shared by these five European public universities, with similar characteristics and objectives.
• The development of joint actions, especially in the academic framework and with international presence, including international university networks and associations.
• The promotion of transnational academic Europeanism and multilingualism.

It was all about generating a hub of high profile, European-based scientific institutions, established as a coalition of international reference, taking advantage of widely acknowledged specialists, teachers and students, and taking these benefits to foster the development of European culture worldwide.

At this founding meeting in Paris, work also began based on disciplines common to at least three of the five universities, based on mapping existing disciplines in the partner universities. Several disciplines (Law, humanities) were common to all universities, and many others (sciences, Medicine) to at least three. It was also decided to launch a joint program on Sustainable Entrepreneurship and another on Europe as an interdisciplinary theme of study since European studies are essential to highlight both the specific values of Europe (culture, heritage, etc.) and the challenges Europe faces today (labor, immigration, demographics, climate crisis, and more). Finally, a decision was taken to organize a first meeting of Deans whose faculties host these studies in the five universities (mainly humanities and social sciences) to define the themes more specifically. The University of Leuven hosted this intensive meeting of Deans, which took place in June 2018. It must be said that this meeting was the definitive academic germ for implementing the projects and joint actions that would eventually be created. In the meantime, the five universities began to organize joint activities that would serve as training for us to work as a transnational campus (summer schools, postgraduate seminars) and also a staff week, aware that to make this alliance work, the involvement of the administration and services staff was as important as that of the faculty.

After the Gothenburg Summit, it was already known that the EU, through Erasmus+, was about to launch a KA₂ (Key Action₂) call, called European Universities, to which we obviously had to apply since it was announced that the EU would fund an undetermined number of selected alliances with 30 million euros for three years. Among the requirements announced in informative meetings prior to the call for proposals, one of the main conditions was comprehensive geographical coverage of the alliances. Aware that in our Alliance of five, we had neglected Northern and Eastern Europe, we invited the Universities of Krakow (Poland) and Edinburgh (UK) to join UNA Europa, which they immediately accepted, since by then, all the major universities in Europe were beginning to seek inclusion in European alliances. We thus became an alliance of seven universities, which we were starting to envision as a gigantic transnational campus [see box].


After that, six months of frenetic activity began among the seven universities to elaborate on the Project we would present to the KA₂ Action. Given the importance of the seven-member universities, we knew that we were obliged to be one of the partnerships selected for the pilot program throughout 2019.

The modus operandi for the elaboration of the project was a model of international collaboration and teamwork in which, after the local working meetings of each Vice-Rector with their team (in the case of UCM, the necessary cooperation between the Vice-Rector for International Relations and the Vice-Rector for Research was constant and very fruitful), everything was shared with the rest of the universities through emails, seven-sides virtual meetings, face-to-face meetings, always inspired by a high dose of hope. Thus, week after week, month after month, meeting after meeting, we elaborated Work Packages and defined the joint degrees that we would propose in our project. Finally, we configured a project of almost one hundred pages, whose final objective was described as the creation of a European campus applying and testing models of joint courses and programs, and innovative and improved mobility plans, focusing on four primary areas of collaboration: Cultural Heritage, European Studies, Sustainability, and Artificial Intelligence and Data Science.

In the case of European Studies, the implementation of a three-year Bachelor’s Degree was planned, and in the rest of the areas, Masters, Ph.D., or continuing education degrees were proposed, depending on the case. But in all of them, the principles that were to guide the design of the contents were: multilingualism, multidisciplinarity, integration of research in education, integration of the physical and virtual learning space, participation of local communities, promotion of common European values, and focus on transferable skills: intercultural awareness, problem-solving, and entrepreneurial skills, among others. The Alliance was described in the project as a living laboratory that would develop Joint Innovative Formats (JIFs) for education and mobility, combining face-to-face, hybrid, and online teaching and learning. In addition, the research-based course and curriculum design implied a 100% student mobility rate. This was the wording of the project’s summary:
After long months of work, the date to submit the project finally arrived, February 28, 2019. But before and after this date, UNA Europa was already on the move, proving to be exultantly alive and full of energy. In just eighteen months, we had held two Doctoral Seminars (on heritage at UCM and sustainability in Berlin), two conferences on museums and heritage (Leuven and Paris), a round table on research (Paris), a students’ conference (Leuven) and a summer school (El Escorial, Madrid).

On June 26, 2019, The European Commission finally announced that European HEIs would be part of the first European Universities partnerships. We then knew that out of the 54 applications received, 17 European Universities were selected, involving 114 higher education institutions from 24 member States, based on an evaluation by 26 independent external experts appointed by the Commission, including rectors, professors, and researchers.

UNA Europa was among those 17! (Comisión Europea, 2019, includes the list of the other sixteen initiatives selected). Each alliance would receive significant funding over the next three years in order to start getting their projects up and running and pave the way for other higher education institutions across the EU. It was the beginning of a dream that looked more and more possible. European Universities, the resolution declared:
Tibor Navracsics, EU Commissioner for Education, Culture, Youth and Sport, said that the first 17 European Universities, would act as role models for others across the EU:
THE FIRST EUROPEAN BACHELOR’S DEGREE
All that remained was to continue working to make the project a reality. That reality was launched during the academic year 2022-2023 with the first Bachelor of Arts in European Studies (BAES, see https://ghum.kuleuven.be/EN/baes), the only European degree to date.

Students have already begun their studies at one of the four universities that will jointly award the degree (UCM, KU Leuven, University of Bologna, and Jagiellonian University of Krakow) and will be able to design an unprecedented mobility itinerary over the course of three years at these four sites. A learning experience that may also include semesters of mobility in any of the other UNA Europa member universities since all of them have collaborated in the development of this innovative program, which will be followed by other similar programs focused on other areas of knowledge (Saura, 2022).

THE DREAM OF A EUROPEAN CAMPUS IS A REALITY. HOPEFULLY, IT WILL SERVE AS INSPIRATION FOR LATIN AMERICAN UNIVERSITIES

The dream of a transnational European campus is now a reality. Hopefully, this model of collaboration will serve as an inspiration for similar academic adventures among Latin American universities.

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