The UNITA - Universitas Montium consortium was selected by the European Commission to integrate the European Universities project, becoming part of the great strategy of modernizing the European education space.
The project integrates six Higher Education institutions, from five countries: University of Beira Interior (Portugal), Universidad de Zaragoza (Spain), Université de Pau et Des Pays de L'Adour and Université Savoie Mont Blanc (France), Università Degli Studi di Torino (Italy) and Universitatea de Veste din Timisoara (Romania).
The six institutions of Higher Education, which, in total, have about 160,000 students and 15,000 employees, came together around the sharing of common goals, realities and challenges. Romance languages are example (whose use in academia aim to encourage diversity and inclusion), the geographical location in mountain and border regions of each country and because they are important elements in the development of communities where they belong.
With the UNITA consortium, universities intend to join synergies and deepen the development of territories, based on concepts such as sustainability and the circular economy, and also to promote training focused on the student, in a perspective of multiculturalism and inclusion, according to the European heritage.
In the next three years, they will work on the constitution of an inter-university campus that will function through the mobility of students, teachers, researchers and employees, and the creation of a virtual campus. For students, for example, it will be possible to circulate between institutions during training, benefiting from an innovative pedagogical model.
UNITA - Universitas Montium was one of the 24 consortia now approved by the European Commission, which received 62 applications for the European Universities Initiative. Only three consortia were approved involving Portuguese universities.