Europaeum

The Europaeum is a network of leading universities in Europe, founded in 1992 by three universities: University of Bologna, Leiden University, and University of Oxford. It currently has 17 member universities operating in 15 countries. The Europaeum is based administratively at St Antony's College, Oxford.

Background

The Europaeum is a unique multinational initiative that brings together not only some of the finest academic institutions in Europe, but some of the continent’s best and brightest young minds, connecting them across disciplines, cultures and countries. It promotes collaboration between students and faculty throughout Europe, mainly in the humanities and social sciences.

The distinctiveness of what the Europaeum offers lies in its focus on the potential of students as individuals and the desire to help them make a difference in their future lives. This is reflected in the Europaeum’s clear and attractive central mission, which is to bring together talented young people - to think, learn, work and develop skills together - as they, in the words of the organisation’s founding mandate, emerge as ‘future leaders for a new Europe’ and help ‘shape the future of Europe for the better’.

The Europaeum is committed to promoting multi-disciplinary study and learning, to addressing cross-cutting issues - past, present and future - and to working at the interface of academia and policy practice. It seeks to overcome intellectual silos and to ‘decompartmentalise’ thinking, so that students can maximise their potential, contribution and impact, whether they pursue academic or non-academic careers in their later lives. In short, the Europaeum aims to help produce better leaders and better policy for the future of Europe.

The Europaeum differs from other university alliances or networks in Europe in that it is not a lobbying organisation, it does not act as a framework for joint applications for research funding, and it does not award joint degrees. Its focus instead is on the development of critical thinking, analytical and practical skills, and a deeper knowledge of contemporary issues and challenges on the part of those students who take part in its programmes.

History

In the aftermath of the Fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, the Europaeum was conceived by George Weidenfeld, Ronald Grierson and Roy Jenkins, who had recently become Chancellor of the University of Oxford, as a vehicle for promoting the ‘advancement of education through the encouragement of European studies in the University of Oxford and other European institutions of higher education having links with Oxford’.

The Europaeum was formally launched as an international network in 1992 by three major universities - Oxford, Leiden University and Bologna University - expanding in turn to include Bonn, which joined in 1996 and left in 2013), Paris I (Panthéon-Sorbonne), which joined in 1997 and left in 2023, and the Geneva Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, which joined in 1998.

In the early 2000s, the Europaeum became a UK charity and not-for-profit company limited by guarantee. A new governance structure was established, with a Europaeum Council, an Academic Committee and a Management Committee, which broadly correspond to the respective governing bodies today. Dr Paul Flather was appointed as Secretary General and the organisation moved from the university's offices to those of the Voltaire Foundation in Oxford. An MA in European Politics, Culture, History and Institutions - linking Bologna, Leiden and Oxford - was run as a pilot project.

The network continued to expand to include Charles University in Prague, which joined in 2001, Complutense University of Madrid in 2003, Helsinki University in 2004, and the Jagiellonian University in Kraków in 2005, reaching its then target of 10 members. In 2004-05, Oxford, Paris and Leiden launched a new jointly-offered Europaeum MA in European History and Civilisation (EHC). Following the death of Roy Jenkins in 2003, a memorial fund was set up to raise funds for European scholarships, which ran from 2004 to 2017.

A Board of Trustees was established in 2009-10 to take over the supervisory duties from the Europaeum Council, supported by an Academic Council, representing the member universities. Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona joined the network in 2012, followed by Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich in 2015.

A new joint academic programme was launched in 2012 by the Universities of Prague, Leiden and Paris, around the theme of European Politics and Society (EPS), with graduates spending their second year of study (of a two-year graduate programme) at a partner institution. The programme was named in honour of the late President of the Czech Republic and human rights activist, Vaclav Havel.

Since 2016, Dr Andrew Graham, who had chaired the Academic Council, has led a substantial reformatting of the Europaeum, which has involved notably the creation and launch a Europaeum Scholars' Programme (see above) and the initiation of an alumni programme. The Europaeum moved its offices to St Antony's College, Oxford in 2018.

Membership of the network has since grown from 11 universities in 2016 to 17 in 2024. The new universities joining have been St Andrews University and the University of Luxembourg in 2017; the Catholic University of Portugal in Lisbon, Copenhagen University and the Free University of Berlin in 2019; and Tartu University

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