Finding the entrance gates into our academic communities
UNITA is committed to fostering meaningful and productive collaborations, which are rooted in a deep mutual understanding. To this end, the UNITA alliance provides dedicated spaces and tools to facilitate interaction and promote stronger connections among members of University staff communities.
Discovering UNITA communities: matching events, hubs, cartography and more
Hubs
Research activities within UNITA are structured around six thematic hubs ( Link to Hubs), characterized by a cross-disciplinary and interdisciplinary approach:
- Green Energy
- Circular Economy and Environment
- Cultural Heritage
- Digital Transitions
- Global Health
- Inclusive Societies
The hubs enable collaborative initiatives to develop within their research communities. They encourage to submit joint projects and advertise UNITA or joint-opportunities (activities, research funding..). By creating joint activities such as Blended intensive programmes or summer schools, they build interfaces between research, education and societal challenges.
Visit the page and learn more about hubs.
Research cartography
UNITA Research cartography lists individuals and teams wishing to develop collaborations within the alliance on research topics/projects that are emerging, underway, or already the subject of a great deal of work. The research cartography is updated every year by means of a call for expressions of interest distributed to all UNITA researchers and teachers/researchers. By making this database available to the community, the research cartography helps researchers to find partners and develop consortia for new projects.
Matching events
Matching events are short, 2-day events consisting of meetings and sharing of information and experiences about joint projects in research or education.
These are moments of strong community building. While bringing together participants coming from all the institutions of the alliance, their main added value lies in the multicultural and multidisciplinary background, but also in the strong motivation of all participants to build collaborations.
Focus: matching events for research
The UNITA European Alliance organizes several research Matching Events throughout the year, focusing on the six thematic hubs of UNITA’s research strategy. These events are hosted on a rotating basis in the cities of the Alliance’s universities.
During a Matching Event, participants have the opportunity to:
- Present their research area.
- Meet colleagues from other UNITA universities.
- Exchange best practices
- Explore potential collaborations and projects in the field of research and education.
With the goal of fostering a transdisciplinary and interdisciplinary approach to education and scientific research, the main objective of UNITA’s Matching Events is to facilitate connections among researchers from diverse scientific fields, united by common research interests and topics.
How to Participate
Each Matching Event allows a maximum of 48 participants representing all the universities. Each institution has got a fixed number of available spots.
Fit-sized facilitation
You strive to develop joint projects but you could not take part in the abovementioned programmes?
As an alternative, get in touch with the UNITA office in your institution or with the hub’s local representative. Tell them more about your project or your expectations. They could get you in touch with appropriate partners within the alliance.
Starting projects and collaborations
UNITA Starting Grants
The UNITA Starting Grants on Research aim to accelerate the development of inter-university research groups composed of faculty members and researchers who share a common interest in a specific field of knowledge. These grants support the exchange of best practices and the initiation of joint projects.
Following Research matching events (see above), calls for proposals for Starting Grants aim at funding new initiatives, between min. 3 partners from different countries.
Projects maximal duration is 12 months. The grants, up to 5000 euros per institutional partner, are able to fund travel costs mostly, but also some other costs.
In order to be eligible, projects should fall within a thematic scope defined in the rules and regulation, and validated by the relevant hub. Eligible participants are not to be at the benefit of a previous UNITA starting grant.
Deepening collaborations
UNITA Advanced Grants
In research, after the call for starting grants, 6 calls for advanced grants are released since April 2026.
Accessible only for research teams benefitting of a starting grant, the advanced grants aim at supporting the best projects that prove to be the most interesting for the enhancement of community building among Alliance partners even with regard to participation in European or international calls.
More details will be available soon.
Education support and coach for internationalisation
Follow-up workshops take place after matching events in Education. They target participants’ working-groups in an advanced stage of developing joint projects in the area of curricula internationalization. It aims at supporting the elaboration of these joint projects.
The European project Recipes for internationalisation offers a set of tools, personalised advice and support for those who wish to increase their initiative into sustainable joint educational collaboration.
In a nutshell: benefits and impacts of networking in UNITA
You have already an established network: what added value does UNITA bring you?
- UNITA supports you while preparing new projects, from the calls for starting grants in 2025 to the calls for advanced grants in 2026.
- Your current network benefits from UNITA dynamics to keep on evolving and getting new development opportunities either on your local institutional level, or at the alliance and European level.
- You come into one of the 64 European university alliances that shape the future of European education and research. Your voice can be heard.
You are teacher or researcher and seek to develop your international network. How can UNITA alliance help you?
- You get a rapid and easy access to already existing communities of research or educational interests.
- You give visibility to your research projects through the research cartography, so that you become able to attract other partnerships;
- You benefit from a lot of support for starting joint projects in Research and Education.
| Topic | Location | Dates |
| Green and Secure ICT for the Digital Society in the Anthropocene (Hub Digital Transition) | Pamplona, Spain | May 29-30, 2025 |
| Mental and Physical Health, Wellbeing, and Preventive Medicine in Humans and Animals (Hub Global Health) | Brescia, Italy | June 12-13, 2025 |
| Inclusive Societies | Zaragoza, Spain | April 1-2, 2025 |
| Inclusive Societies | Brașov, Romania | May 22-23, 2025 |
| Global Health | Covilhã, Portugal | April 28-29, 2025 |
| European Citizenship | Covilhã, Portugal | May 6-7, 2025 |
| Digital Transition | Guarda, Portugal | March 25-26, 2025 |
| Social, Economic, and Legal Challenges for Environmental Sustainability and Circular Economy | Timișoara, Romania | March 18-19, 2025 |
| Circular Economy & Environment | Zaragoza, Spain | January 22-23, 2025 |
| Green Energy | Chambéry, France | November 5-6, 2024 |
| Green Heritage: Rethinking Rural Areas in the 21st Century | Pau, France | October 17-18, 2024 |