The Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg is a new member of the CHARM-European University Alliance. The aim of this alliance is to improve the international competitiveness of European universities.
In December 2017, the European Council decided to initiate new networks of European universities to improve the international competitiveness of universities and strengthen the sense of European belonging. One outcome of this initiative is the CHARM European University Alliance (CHARM-EU), which was launched in January 2019.
Co-funded by the Erasmus+ project, CHARM-EU has set itself the goal of developing a new higher education model that will demonstrate how the quality, international competitiveness and attractiveness of the European higher education landscape can be enhanced. Among other things, the mobility of students and staff is to be increased and the quality of European higher education is to be promoted.
The founding members are the University of Barcelona, Trinity College Dublin, the Universities of Utrecht and Montpellier and the Eötvös Loránd University of Budapest. They represent around 12,000 academics and 172,000 students.
Three new members
Now the CHARM-European University Alliance can welcome three more members to its alliance: the Finnish Åbo Akademi University, the Hochschule Ruhr West and the Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg (JMU).
"Thanks to this strategic cooperation, CHARM-EU can strengthen its efforts to shape and consolidate the university of the future by increasing the quality, international competitiveness, diversity and inclusiveness and ultimately the attractiveness of the European higher education landscape": With these words, the Alliance welcomes its new members.
Together, the CHARM-EU partners will work on their common goals "towards a more sustainable and inclusive future". To this end, the participating institutions will contribute experiences from their respective education systems on topics such as teaching, learning and digital transformation. In addition, the three new partners will broaden the regional, cultural, linguistic, economic and historical perspectives and diversity of the Alliance.
Aiming for a European university campus
What the members of the network have in mind is a kind of "European university campus" that is internationally accessible thanks to state-of-the-art technology. Curricula and programmes of this campus should combine the best examples from the different European traditions and unite them with a flexible, competence-oriented modulation structure.
Doris Fischer, Vice President for Internationalisation at JMU, is pleased about the membership in the new network. "This offers the University of Würzburg the opportunity to expand its European cooperation with strong partners, who, moreover, almost all belong to the COIMBRA network like JMU. Joining the alliance means tailwind for the internationalisation of research and teaching at JMU."
