INGENIUM Secures Two More Years of Erasmus+ Funding for its Next Phase

On 9 July 2026, INGENIUM learned that the European Commission had selected its Next INGENIUM proposal for funding through the Erasmus+ European Universities call. This means the alliance will get Erasmus+ support until December 2028, with about 7.2 million euros.

The call closed in March, and results were expected later in the year. Now, the outcome gives the ten universities a clear two-year window to build on the work they started together in the early years.

From 2023 to 2026, INGENIUM built the foundations of its transnational alliance. This included setting up governance bodies, joint educational frameworks, and shared policies on sustainability, inclusion, multilingualism, and wellbeing. In the next phase, these elements will become part of daily life at the ten universities.

The alliance has goals that go beyond this funding period. By 2035, INGENIUM wants to function as a single European University across ten locations, with unified academic processes, more opportunities for mobility, joint qualifications to address skills gaps in Europe, and a permanent legal entity to keep the work going beyond each funding cycle.

What we said when the proposal went in

When INGENIUM submitted the proposal in March, the Director, Juan Rayón, said this new phase is about moving towards deeper integration. “What we want with Next INGENIUM is for students, academics and stakeholders to see cooperation with their INGENIUM partners (with other professors, other students, other researchers) as something completely inherent to the experience of being part of our university community,” he pointed out.

For students, he placed the European dimension at the very start of their education. “We want every student to feel that being part of an INGENIUM campus means having a European dimension built into their education from day one (…) By 2028/2029, our ambition is to have seven joint programmes fully operational across all levels, Bachelor’s, Master’s and Doctoral, aligned with the European Degree label, giving graduates a qualification with genuine European recognition and value in the labour market.”

Rayón was equally clear about the legal instrument underpinning that ambition, the European Grouping of Territorial Cooperation, which he expected INGENIUM to be “the first alliance to implement”. Even within its current rules, he noted, the structure “gives INGENIUM a legal personality that enables joint contracts, staff hiring, property management, and direct access to European and national funding programmes.”

An alliance already in motion

This funding decision comes at a busy time for INGENIUM. On 7 July, the alliance became the first to finish the Institutional Evaluation Programme of the European University Association.

In education, the INGENIUM Chemical and Biochemical Process Technology master’s programme, offered together by the University of Oviedo, Gheorghe Asachi Technical University of Iaşi, and the University of Rouen-Normandy, has been accredited by the Romanian quality agency under the European Approach and is now enrolling its first students. Also, twelve pathway programmes at five partner universities will welcome their first students next academic year. The catalogue of joint Blended Intensive Programmes for 2026/2027 is already available, and the list of micro-credentials is growing.

The legal entity that will support much of this work is almost ready. The INGENIUM European Grouping of Territorial Cooperation has approved statutes, and national authorisations are underway.

Next INGENIUM

Next INGENIUM is organised around four main areas. The first is governance and institutional transformation, which brings coordination under one structure and moves the EGTC from approved statutes to a working legal entity. The second area, the educational core, focuses on both what and how teaching happens in the alliance. This includes building a stronger Staff Academy for teaching development, expanding joint programmes and flexible pathways that match the European Degree, and connecting research with teaching through Knowledge Ecosystems based on INGENIUM’s doctoral structures.

The third area is external engagement. This means making mobility a standard part of study through a shared Mobility Charter and central hub, connecting academic programmes to regional skills needs under the Union of Skills agenda, and building stronger ties with students, staff, and local communities. The last area is communication and advocacy, which shares results with a wider audience and tracks the regulatory challenges that still affect cross-border cooperation.

The goals for this period show how ambitious the project is. INGENIUM plans to have seven joint programmes with students enrolled, more than twenty pathway programmes, twenty micro-credentials, over one hundred courses in a shared catalogue, and about three thousand mobility experiences by the end of 2028.

These activities come together in the Annual Education Cycle, a yearly process that follows the academic calendar and gives the alliance a reliable way to design, deliver, and review joint education. Each cycle starts with discussions between the partner universities and their regional partners, including businesses, public authorities, and civil society, to identify new skills needs. These needs lead to an annual call for new joint education, after which staff from different universities meet to develop and refine proposals. Selected teams then join the INGENIUM Staff Academy, where they co-design their courses and present their work at the INGENIUM Annual Conference. The first full cycle will run during the 2027/2028 academic year.

In February 2026, the Rectors and Presidents of the ten universities approved a revised Mission Statement describing what they want INGENIUM to become. It defines the alliance’s identity as an “Alliance of Diversity” and commits them to deep institutional transformation. It additionally sets a clear goal for 2035: a fully integrated European University with ten campuses across the Union, recognised for the quality, inclusiveness, and relevance of its education, for its contribution to European competitiveness and social cohesion, and for its role in changing European higher education.