European university COLOURS

9 European universities have joined forces to form the Alliance "COLOURS" (COLlaborative innOvative sUstainable Regional univerSities).

Together, they want to strengthen their European network, increase their international visibility and strongly promote mobility within Europe.They also plan to develop a thematic approach to societal transition in order to meet together current and future societal challenges.

In addition to Le Mans University, the Alliance includes Paderborn University (Germany), the University of Castilla-La Mancha (Spain), the University of Ferrara (Italy), Kristianstad University (Sweden), Jan Dlugosz University (Poland),Josip Jurai Strossmayer University of Osijek (Croatia), the University St Kliment Ohridski Bitola (North Macedonia) and Ventspils University of Applied Sciences (Latvia). Together they represent more than 126 000 students and almost 12,500 staff.

All COLOURS partners are closely linked to their regional socio-political and economic environments. Therefore, their approach also focuses on strengthening the cooperation between the respective regions and regional stakeholders.

Following a "triple societal transition approach" in education, research and knowledge, and technology transfer, the partners’ aim is to harness synergy effects by intensifying their cooperation at all levels. For instance, the Alliance plans to develop new and attractive opportunities for virtual and physical mobility and, in the long term, intends to create joint study and teaching activities. Students are strongly involved in the design of these offers.

In all measures, COLOURS is also strongly committed to gender equality, inclusiveness, diversity and equity.

  European universities

On the basis of the first application submitted under the "EUropean Universities" 2022 call and the promising evaluation obtained, the partners met at the University of Le Mans on 13 October 2022 for a workshop as part of the International Week. This meeting was an opportunity to discuss the new application to be submitted in 2023 and the expansion of the alliance to include new partners.

On 3 July 2023, the European Commission published the results of its latest call for proposals. 7 new European university alliances have been selected, including the COLOURS alliance.

The selected alliances will receive funding to improve the quality of European higher education and promote cooperation between institutions, their students and employees as well as cross-border mobility throughout Europe.

Mid-July, the partners of the COLOURS Alliance met to prepare the next steps :

-Signature of all contractual documents with the EACEA

-Meeting in Kristianstad University (Sweden) in September 2023

-Meeting in Jan Dlugosz University (Poland) in November 2023