The European Campus of City-Universities (EC2U) is a European Universities Alliance of nine higher-education institutions – the universities of Coimbra, Iași, Jena, Linz, Pavia, Poitiers (coordinator), Salamanca, Turku, and Umeå – joined by associated municipal and socio-economic partners across their regions. The alliance was launched in November 2020 under the European Commission’s Erasmus+ “European Universities Initiative,” and is funded in part by Erasmus+. Its goal is to enhance the quality, capacity, attractiveness, and international competitiveness of European higher education and to create seamless mobility between the nine partner universities and cities.
Activities span education, research, campus development, student activities, and sustainability, organized through joint Master’s degree programmes and Virtual Institutes focused on doctoral training and research.