1 alliance, 11 universities, countless possibilities
Welcome to CIVIS, Europe’s Civic University Alliance
Aix-Marseille Université, National Kapodistrian University of Athens, Université Libre de Bruxelles, University of Bucharest, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Sapienza Università di Roma, Stockholms Universitet and Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen are joining forces to build a European University alliance under the name of CIVIS.
In December 2020, the European Commission approved the request to integrate the University of Glasgow into the CIVIS alliance of universities, as an associate partner, and in October 2021, Paris Lodron University of Salzburg (PLUS) becomes the tenth member of our Alliance, and the first Austrian University in our European family.
For CIVIS, the addition of the PLUS will bring expertise in – amongst others – digital humanities, life sciences and international networking and will add a second member from German-speaking Europe.
On 1 October 2022, CIVIS formally welcomes the University of Lausanne, taking our Alliance to 11 European members and adding Switzerland to the list of countries with a CIVIS member university.
Thereby, CIVIS is now a university community of around half a million students, 70.000 members of staff (including over 37.400 academics and researchers) whose expertise, insights and shared values will not only strengthen CIVIS’s role in shaping the future of Higher Education but tackle, hands-on, pivotal societal challenges.
- CIVIS is a transnational collaboration of civic universities, which will bring together around half a million students and 70.000 staff members, fostering multilingualism and European cultural diversity.
- CIVIS is committed to implementing to the largest extent possible the principles of the Bologna process, in order to be part of the European Education Area construction. The vision is a European Civic University as a space for innovative and responsible teaching, research, cultural exchanges and citizen action within Europe from the Baltic to the Mediterranean Sea, while engaging with the world, its inhabitants and its institutions.
- CIVIS will reinforce the links existing between the 8 universities through complementary expertise, shared research infrastructures and incentive funding for joint projects.
- CIVIS faces major global challenges and aims at being a vector of change and innovation with the following priorities:
- Health
- Cities, Territories and Mobility
- Climate, Environment, Energy
- Digital and Technological Transformations
- Society, Cultures and European Heritage
- Mediterranean and African regions will also be at the core of CIVIS global strategy.
- The involvement of each university will strengthen access to quality education and create real chances for success to all students.
- Excellence in research will be a key asset for contributing to research-based training and innovative activities.
- All the stakeholders involved in the life of the 11 universities will contribute to the definition of the alliance’s orientations and activities: students, academics, researchers, administrative staff, non-academic partners, etc.
- CIVIS will evolve over the next decade in three phases ensuring participative inputs during the entire process, so that CIVIS – European University alliance may become a reality.
