The European University Alliance, EU4DUAL, (European Dual Studies University), was selected by European Commission as one of the four new projects to develop the European Universities initiative. Out of the 52 applications submitted, the European Commission selected 16 existing and only 4 new alliances.

The EU4DUAL Alliance is composed of nine leading European universities in working life-oriented higher education. The coordinator is Mondragon University (Spain), and partners are Savonia UAS, Duale Hochschule Baden-Württemberg (Germany), FH JOANNEUM Gesellschaft mbH (Austria), ESTIA Institute of Technology (France), Neumann János Egyetem (Hungary), PAR University College (Croatia), Malta College of Arts, Science and Technology (Malta) and Koszalin University of Technology (Poland).

All partners are strongly committed to the business environments located in their regions, where they have developed their own models of cooperative or dual education in which students combine periods of practical learning in companies and organisations with periods of academic learning. The network’s vision is to be a European pioneer and an example of higher education that produces expertise for the future needs of working life and solves global challenges in cooperation with students and working life.

– The European University Alliances that have been funded earlier have been mostly led by research universities, and EU4DUAL is the first alliance of higher education institutions that all are working life-oriented, says Director of Internationality Virpi Laukkanen.

Eastern Finland’s higher education is strongly represented in European University Initiative, as Karelia UAS and the University of Eastern Finland are involved in the alliances established in previous years.