Our Mission

ENGAGE.EU aims to empower a new generation of European citizens in the areas of business, economics, and social sciences, equipped with a research-based approach to frame and solve future challenges.

Through collaborative efforts and comprehensive interdisciplinary approaches drawing from business, economics, and social sciences and other disciplines such as humanities, law, public health and STEAM, we strive to drive innovation, promote sustainability, and, ultimately, have a positive impact on the world. We enable our learners to act as socially engaged European citizens and to serve society at large as experts on business, economics, and social sciences. More specifically, we will:

1. radically scale-up the European education experience of our learners by innovative learner-centred, research-based learning settings and new pedagogical concepts;
2. advance research and innovation in business, economics, and social sciences by fostering interdisciplinarity and promoting co-creation with diverse stakeholders;
3. strengthen European ecosystems through research-based outreach initiatives and projects with high impact on both research and practice.

To advance this mission, we count on three assets:

• our historical identity and our specific role within our societies and regional ecosystems as strong partners – we are the engaged universities
• our commitment to research and innovation and education related to societal challenges – we embody engaged academic efforts for and with respect to the UN Sustainable Development Goals
• our growth as a joint European alliance – we are engaged together

Our approach is challenge-based, implying (1) strong interdisciplinary collaboration across the entire scope of the social sciences and beyond, (2) extensive trans-sectorial collaboration with diverse actors in academia, the private economy, policy and civil society, and (3) a multi-level “think locally, act globally”-approach building on regional ecosystems and linking them to the national, European and global levels.

This transformation impacts on the full breadth of our activities (Engaged in Sustainable Cooperation) and all three core academic missions: Engaged Learning, Engaged Research & Innovation, and Engaged in Society.

Engaged Learning

Based on the principles of research-based learning and co-creation of knowledge, we will build a joint ENGAGE.EU University Campus with a common course catalogue spanning business, economics and social sciences, enriched by other fields, and embed physical and virtual mobility opportunities in our programmes. We will implement a range of formats, from ENGAGE.EU signature courses that reach a large portion of our learners, to challenge-based programmes with extended hybrid mobility, and to lighthouse Joint Programmes at master level piloting the ENGAGE.EU learning experience. To leverage the transformative potential of our offer, we will prioritise adapting our current portfolio so that ENGAGE.EU activities emerge naturally from local strategic development interests.

We will create a number of support mechanisms, which will enhance our capacity to support all our learners in a way that is adapted to their needs. These will consist of a hub for pedagogical innovation, a learners-labour market nexus that will support mainstream lifelong learning, as well as an IT infrastructure enabling seamless mobility.

Engaged Research and Innovation

As strong research institutions, we will foster interdisciplinary research by supporting early-stage researchers by setting-up of new forms of collaboration, drawing on the entire range of competencies, perspectives and regional and national contexts of our institutions, and with a lighthouse ENGAGE.EU PhD Programme building on existing PhD programmes of the partner universities.

Our second focus in the field of research is the support for our developing research communities. We will enhance our highly successful ENGAGE.EU Think Tank that offers a space for our researchers to engage with external actors on specific topics of wide interest. This has been a highly appreciated tool to mobilise our communities and a key catalyst for networking and grassroots activities for deepening our research collaborations.

Engaged in Society

Bridging between societal decision-making and our educational and research & innovation efforts, we will set up an ENGAGE.EU impact driving hub that ensures the public visibility of our projects and the impact of their findings on policy making. In a series of our lighthouse ENGAGE.EU Labs, we will integrate students, lifelong learners, researchers, innovators, companies, citizens’ initiatives and policy-makers working together. These labs will be open and dynamic innovation spaces for knowledge creating teams, embodying our challenge-based framework. In these labs, the university will act as an orchestrator of multi-actor innovation networks.

We will establish and organise ENGAGE.EU Work Integrated Learning Programmes, thereby helping practitioners to become responsible change agents for their respective organisations, combining academic insights with the highest professional standards.

Engaged in Sustainable Cooperation

We bring together communities of learners, staff and stakeholders at all levels of our organisations, covering a wide range of roles and professions, from learners to teachers, from researchers to innovators, from admission officers to librarians, from human resources officials to incubator managers, to our Rectors and Presidents. They all will embody the ENGAGE.EU spirit of excellence, integrity, diversity, inclusion and impact.

Establishing sustainable and effective structures we foresee a systemic expansion of ENGAGE.EU within our programmes, levels (short cycle, bachelor, master, doctorate, lifelong learning), our fields of study and research and innovation and our services (to learners, staff and society). In this way, we want to ensure that our Alliance will renew itself constantly.

As ENGAGE.EU we will reflect continuously on ourselves in order to live up to our mission empowering a new generation of European citizens, equipped with research-based competencies to frame and solve societal challenges not only today but also tomorrow.

Who we are

The ENGAGE.EU European University is composed of the Libera Università Internazionale degli Studi Sociali Guido Carli in Rome (Luiss), the Norwegian School of Economics (NHH) in Bergen, Tilburg University, the University of Mannheim, the University of National and World Economy in Sofia, the University of Toulouse 1 Capitole, Vienna University of Economics and Business, Hanken School of Economics in Helsinki/Vaasa and Ramon Llull Universtiy in Barcelona, reflecting the diversity of Europe. Our alliance is currently the academic home to over 100,000 students, academics and staff who cooperate enthusiastically, co-create and share their interdisciplinary and cross-cultural knowledge.