The partners of the university alliance UNITE (University Network for Innovation, Technology and Engineering) met last week, 5th and 6th November, in Darmstadt, Germany, to sign the cooperation agreement that will make the new university viable. Instituto Superior Técnico will represent Universidade de Lisboa (ULisboa) and is part of this university alliance, together with six prestigious universities: Aalto University (Finland), KTH Royal Institute of Technology (Sweden), Grenoble Institute of Technology (France), Politecnico di Torino (Italy), Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (Spain) and Technische Universität Darmstadt (Germany) – which coordinates the project.

The meeting held at TU Darmstadt was attended by the Rector of Universidade de Lisboa, professor António Cruz Serra and the President of Técnico, professor Arlindo Oliveira. On Thursday, members of the 17 European universities funded by European Universities Initiative participated in a session organised by the European Commission, in Brussels.

The main goal of this alliance is to create a prestigious European university, a common space based on multidisciplinary teaching that promotes research, teaching, innovation and knowledge transfer at the institutions and countries involved. According to the President of Técnico “this is an important step to the creation of a true European and transnational university, which will allow a full mobility of students, faculty and researchers in this highly prestigious institutions”.

The UNITE alliance will receive €5 million over the next three years. It is expected that, by 2025, 50% of students at these institutions will benefit from the various mobility opportunities at UNITE universities.

The seven partners of UNITE have a solid history of collaboration: they are part of the Consortium Linking Universities of Science and Technology for Education and Research (CLUSTER). Together, the seven institutions have more than 167,000 students enrolled and about 36,000 students graduate annually.