EELISA Project Portfolio

The EELISA European University was selected under the Erasmus+ 2020 call; its first funded period started in November 2020 and will end in October 2023. The Alliance started with nine founding HEIs from seven European countries and three European regions. Now, bridging borders within and beyond the EU, EELISA is adding a new full member, Zürcher Hochschule für Angewandte Wissenschaften (ZHAW) from Switzerland, and has agreed on a strategy for enlargement with a specific focus on the Northern European area and the cooperation with Ukrainian universities. The ten full members of EELISA comprise special-statute schools, full-spectrum, and science and technology universities that are united by the belief in the leading role of higher education in building a fair, prosperous and sustainable society, based on European values. Complementing this, the Alliance will keep collaborating with the European Network for Accreditation of Engineering Education (ENAEE) as an associated partner.

The roll-out of EELISA’s cooperation builds on the achievements of the main project in the context of the European Universities initiative of the Erasmus+ programme, the two sister projects under Horizon 2020 (EELISA innoCORE) and the EIT HEI initiative (EELISA Unfolds), respectively, and a growing portfolio of strategic projects and further initiatives. These achievements include, among others:

  • Alliance growth with a new member, ZHAW from Switzerland.
  • A robust coordination and management structure including governing bodies with the participation of students, a fully operative EELISA Central Office with an Executive Director, a Dean of Studies, a Communication officer, an IT Officer supported by other 6 resources.
  • The establishment of the basis for joint degrees including:
    • the identification of 2 pilot areas of interest (civil and biomedical engineering),
    • the development of a joint master on Digital Twins for Complex Infrastructures and Urban Ecosystems (co-funded by the Digital Europe Program) and the application for funding for a master on biomedical engineering under the same program (in evaluation),
    • The application, together with EUt+ and ENHANCE alliances, for funding through the ERASMUS-EDU-2022-POL-EXP-HE pilot call in order to design and implement a label for joint degrees in engineering (JEDI Label) (in evaluation).
  • More than 40 EELISA Communities: international, multi-agent, multidisciplinary, bottom-up created groups of students, educators and researchers that are oriented towards SDGs and the UN 2030 Agenda. EELISA Communities have brought together more than 800 researchers and lecturers, and more than 1,500 registered students, in more than 200 activities across campuses and disciplines in their first year. The Communities platform has been released online as a marketplace for these activities.
  • A co-created framework for the recognition of the societal impact of activities used by students through EELISA Credentials (more than 1,300 credentials issued to date). Based on the UN’s SDG Learning Outcomes, the impact is measured on a scale covering “discovery”, “knowledge”, “commitment”, “action” and “transformation” levels.
  • Definition of the EELISA Supplements as tools for the recognition of mobility.
  • A prototype for a Joint Call with a total budget of ca. 300,000€ that is funding 23 impactful and international activities across the Alliance.
  • EELISA definition of the profile of the future European Engineer, while exploring ways to enrich it with non-engineering skills and identifying engineering skills that can broaden non-engineering profiles.
  • 450 courses that are already available on the EELISA Course Catalogue.
  • A strong visual identity and a solid narrative, the identification of target audiences, the expansion of communication channels with a multilingual approach, the EELISA official website (a cornerstone of all communication actions and complemented with nine multilingual EELISA sites inserted within the Alliance members’ institutional websites); the EELISA profiles on the main social media platforms (LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube); the submission of bi-monthly EELISA newsletter and periodical press releases; and the launching of over fifteen communication campaigns composed of articles, interviews, portrait series, collaborative consultations, among others (e.g., Speak out, EELISA Women Portrait Series, etc.).
  • An EELISA Mobility Action Plan, including actions like calls for mobilities or extra funding (which has, for example, raised long-term mobilities from UPM towards other partners from 23 in 2021/2022 to 46 in 2022/2023).
  • Projects emerging from bottom-up initiatives in the context of EELISA Communities, like the Jean Monnet Chair on Technology and Science Diplomacy for European Sovereignty (TechDip).
  • Creation of a Gender Work Group and approval of the Gender Equality Plan in the context of innoCORE.
  • EELISA model for internship and apprenticeship.
  • Mapping of R&I resources in the context of EELISA innoCORE (including infrastructures, technology transfer mechanisms and academia-industry working schemes).
  • “OS Methodological Toolkit” and the “Strategic Planning and Implementation Guide” (a comprehensive set of descriptors and a suggested journey towards the full adoption of Open Science (OS) and examples of best practices for HEIs) to be implemented by EELISA partners.
  • Collection, mapping and sharing of activities, programmes, best practices and innovation and entrepreneurial ecosystems among the project partners in the context of EELISA Unfolds.
  • New joint entrepreneurship programmes (e.g., Change-makers and Innovation & leadership courses, pilot programmes like Boostee, Mentorship, Tech-transfer and Landing Pad, and European Championship Demo Day) and activities across the consortium reaching thousands of students, researchers and staff and tens of university-based start-ups and spin-offs.