The Alliance
The Alliance’s name stems from the Latin term arcus/arquus, for arch, representing the strong foundations the consortium has laid since 2018 to build bridges
towards a shared future, to respond to the grand global societal challenges and to advance towards deeper European integration.
The Arqus European University Alliance brings together the universities of Granada, Graz, Leipzig, Lyon 1, Maynooth, Minho, Padua, Vilnius and Wroclaw, nine longstanding comprehensive research universities who share extensive experience in joint projects and a common profile as internationalized institutions with deep regional engagement in medium-sized cities.
Arqus aspires to build on the member universities’ sound prior experience in cooperation in order to achieve a high level of integration in its members’ policies and action plans in order to:
- enhance the education of critically engaged European and global citizens who are able and willing to contribute to a multicultural, multilingual and inclusive Europe which is open to the world;
- increase and improve the joint research capacity of the partner universities;
- better respond to the grand societal challenges of the 21st century in Europe and beyond.
The principal ambition of the Arqus European University Alliance is to act jointly as a laboratory for institutional learning from which to move forward in the design, testing and implementation of an innovative model for deep inter-university cooperation.
The Alliance aims to consolidate a joint governance structure to facilitate the development of consensual joint policies and action plans, to consolidate participative structures to facilitate cross-cutting integration at all levels of the partner institutions, and to share its experience with other groupings in order to communicate the added value to be found in its model of integration.
The Arqus European University Alliance was formally established in Brussels on 27 November 2018 when the rectors and presidents of our member institutions signed a Memorandum of Understanding in order to strengthen the cooperative links which already exist between and among us.
News and calls
Arqus Café
The Arqus Café is a virtual meeting place where students and staff from the Arqus partner universities can practice their language skills outside of the language classroom. The sessions are not led by teachers but instead by language tutors who are native-level speakers. This is a great way to expand your language and cultural knowledge informally and with other language learners in a relaxed atmosphere.
You should have a working knowledge of the language (min. A2/B1) so that you can actively participate in the sessions. We are now offering both a beginner/intermediate and intermediated/advanced café for the languages where this is possible.
So grab a cup of coffee and join us virtually!
Study in Arqus
The Arqus Alliance is working to design and provide a flexible joint academic offer, increase flexibility in the existing curricula of programmes and courses, and bridge research and education to prepare young Europeans for existing and emerging grand societal challenges.
Arqus aims to centre its efforts on enabling people:
- Enabling a widely diverse student body and enhancing their learning experience
- Enabling a similarly diverse staff community and promoting their individual and collective professional development
- Enabling society at large by opening our doors and fully responding to the mission it has entrusted us.
To address these goals, Arqus develops a wide variety of shared activities for learning & teaching with the overarching principal goal of establishing deep, long-term sustained, and enhanced cooperation amongst all partners.