The EULiST alliance (European Universities Linking Society and Technology) was established to promote long-term cooperation in education, research and innovation and in serving society. EULiST is one of the fifty universities involved in the European Universities Initiative, and its establishment process started roughly three years ago. The final partner universities were selected a year ago.

This fall, LUT University and the nine other EULiST universities will launch collaboration aiming for the establishment of a new European university. The collaboration project received four-year funding amounting to 18 million euros, and the collaboration is meant to continue also after the funding period. 

The EULiST network consists of ten European universities. Due to the EU funding recently received, the EULiST universities have become LUT's strategic partners.

• LUT University, Finland
• Jönköping University, Sweden
• Leibniz University Hannover, Germany
• Vienna University of Technology, Austria
• National Technical University of Athens, Greece
• Slovak University of Technology in Bratislava, Slovakia
• Brno University of Technology, Czech Republic
• Rey Juan Carlos University, Spain
• University of L’Aquila, Italy
• Institut Mines-Télécom, France

The new European university will help LUT to thrive in the future. Close cooperation adds to the appeal of all EULiST universities. It’s easier for ten universities to attract new students and offer interesting career paths than it is for one.

“You could think of a joint European university as kind of a sales bargain: when you study at or collaborate with one university, you get ten universities and networks for the price of one,” Jari Hämäläinen compares.

“A joint European university makes us A-listers – part of the top ten per cent. It will improve LUT's visibility, reputation and university ranking positions in the long run.”

From the EU's viewpoint, EULiST is already an official European university. The actual establishment project will start sometime between 1 November 2023 and 1 January 2024. Joint activities will be developed throughout the four-year EU funding period, after which the aim is to apply for new EU funding and continue the development work. 

In the future, the joint European university could operate like an international business enterprise if each university's local legislation permits.

“The dream is to have a multinational university in ten to twenty years. It could be registered in, for example, Belgium, but it could have offices in ten different countries. For now, the EULiST universities will remain individual organisations. Should we merge, the university's name might not necessarily be EULiST.”

The EULiST university's foundation project consists of five work packages and 25 tasks. They cover issues such as the planning of services for students, career paths for teachers, a virtual campus and sustainable activity. 

“People at LUT have the opportunity to take part in all work packages and tasks. LUT is aiming to involve thirty or so people in the project. Adding up the participants from all ten universities, the project would include about three hundred people.”

The EULiST project has been appointed a project manager, and the tasks have designated coordinators who can use their working hours on the project. A list of people assigned to EULiST duties will be later updated on the intranet. University Services lay an administrative foundation for the university collaboration. LUT schools have no management role in the project but take part as equal members in work packages. 

“Initially, it will mean that we need to harmonize the systems and practices of ten universities. Collaboration will be tightened, and new joint activities will be planned,” Hämäläinen explains. 

In the coming years, students of EULiST universities will be able to complete entire minor subject modules at other EULiST universities. Double degrees will continue to be possible between pairs of partner universities. Also, student exchange and funding applications will continue as usual. 

“A joint university means a strategic partnership. Commitments to collaboration and networks no longer take place between individual people but between organizations: they will remain in place even if the people change. For example, we have lost networks of certain professors when the professors have moved on to new jobs.”

According to Hämäläinen, a joint European university offers students the opportunity to cherry-pick what they want from ten different universities and take advantage of a joint virtual campus. 

For researchers, it means even better opportunities to create networks and apply for funding. A joint European university can, for instance, arrange funding application workshops that serve as a meeting point for researchers.

Moreover, employee and teacher exchange to EULiST universities is a good way to find out more about the partner universities. The objective is to learn from other universities about anything from student services to research services and even quality and responsibility issues.

The freedom to choose suitable partners and apply for funding with universities beyond EULiST will remain the same.

“The priority is still to carry out high-quality research and education – be it in the EULiST network or through other channels. We want to increase the opportunities available to us, not reduce them,” Hämäläinen emphasises. 

LUT's rector, vice rectors and deans will, however, primarily cultivate relationships with EULiST universities and other carefully selected partner universities. 

“Our management wants to engage in long-standing collaboration with select partners. We're aiming for greater impact, which means we need to focus our limited resources.”

The aim is to make Europe and European universities more competitive. The EU wants to strengthen universities in its area in order to make them appealing to students also in the future and to retain researchers in Europe. After Brexit, leading British universities such as Oxford and Cambridge are no longer EU universities.

“Top European researchers are increasingly heading for US universities and staying there. The European Commission is aiming to create closer networks between European universities and finance them to increase their competitiveness,” Hämäläinen elaborates.

“The world’s top-ranking universities are mainly American and British. Some are Asian. The level of European universities varies, but no university in the EU area reaches the global top at the moment,” Hämäläinen relates.  

Only one European university – LMU Munich – made the top 30 in the latest THE World University Rankings. The highest-ranking Finnish universities, such as the University of Helsinki, are barely in the top 100.

If we don't make sure Europe is competitive, innovation and R&D will pull out of Europe. That will also mean highly educated people will migrate elsewhere. 

“The worst-case scenario is that Europe will become a tourist destination and an old-world museum where people only come to take in the sights.”

Hämäläinen outlines that championing European competitiveness also means standing up for European values, such as freedom of speech, democracy and equality. 

EULiST is one of the fifty universities in the European Universities Initiative network. The European Commission will arrange one more call where an estimated ten new alliances will be selected to establish new European universities. Consequently, a total of 60 new European universities will see the light of day in the near future.

There are thousands of universities and higher education institutions in Europe, and roughly 10 per cent belong to some type of network. Nearly all Finnish universities and seven Finnish universities of applied sciences are members of European networks.