INGENIUM secures two more years of Erasmus+ funding for its next phase

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.

When INGENIUM submitted the proposal in March 2026, 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,” Rayón pointed out.

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.

INGENIUM brings European higher education as part of our daily life at Xamk

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.

For students, Rayón 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”.

Developing education together

INGENIUM’s 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. The first full cycle will run during the 2027/2028 academic year.

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.

On track towards our shared goals

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. The evaluation report confirms that the alliance is moving towards the fully integrated European university.

At the moment Xamk is a partner in INGENIUM Doctoral Programme in Innovative Strategies for Wellbeing. Starting this autumn Xamk is also offering a Master’s Degree Programme in Advanced Practice Nursing in Acute Care which is developed together within INGENIUM. More joint degrees and programmes are under way.

Twelve pathway programmes at five partner universities will welcome their first students next academic year. At Xamk a Social Services and Psychology for Sustainable Wellbeing pathway programme begins this autumn as part of the Social Services degree programme.

The catalogue of joint Blended Intensive Programmes (BIPs) for 2026/2027 is already available. Next academic year Xamk is organizing three INGENIUM BIPs on our campuses and sending students to three other INGENIUM BIPs.

The list of joint courses, shared teaching materials and micro-credentials is growing. For example, at the end of July 2026, Health Promotion micro-credential is having its on-site week in Oviedo, where healthcare professionals strengthen their competencies in health promotion and develop their ability to design and implement evidence-based interventions.

The legal entity that will support much of INGENIUM’s work is almost ready. The European Grouping of Territorial Cooperation (EGTC) has approved statutes, and national authorisations are underway. Rayón explains that the EGTC “gives INGENIUM a legal personality that enables joint contracts, staff hiring, property management, and direct access to European and national funding programmes.” The homeplace of the EGTC will be in Finland.

In February 2026, the Rectors and Presidents of the ten universities approved a revised INGENIUM’s Mission Statement. 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, recognized 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.

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INGENIUM

Xamk is part of the European University INGENIUM, a campus consisting of ten European higher education institutions.

Joint studies and degrees, research cooperation, information and experience sharing, student exchange, and staff mobility are at the heart of INGENIUM.

1 – University of Oviedo (UniOvi)
2 – the Medical University of Sofia (MUS)
3 – the University of Crete (UoC)
4 – the Karlsruhe University of Applied Sciences (HKA)
5 – the South-Eastern Finland University of Applied Sciences (Xamk)
6 – the University ”G. d’Annunzio” of Chieti – Pescara (Ud´A)
7 – the University of Skövde (HS)
8 – the Munster Technological University (MTU)
9 – the University of Rouen-Normandy (URN)
10 – the Gheorghe Asachi Technical University of Iasi (TUIASI)

INGENIUM is co-funded by the European Union.

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