Arqus European University Alliance.

The European Universities Initiative is a project of the European Commission that seeks to establish transnational alliances aimed at becoming the universities of the future, to foster the European identity and its values, and to revolutionise the quality and competitiveness of European higher education. These alliances cover a wide geographical area across Europe and are based on a jointly planned long-term strategy that focuses on sustainability, excellence and European values. These partnerships offer studentcentred curricula taught jointly on inter-university campuses, where students can design their own education pathways as well as undertake mobility periods at any level of study. A challengebased learning approach is adopted in which students and teaching staff members, together with external partners, cooperate in interdisciplinary teams in order to address the great challenges of the 21st century.

The Arqus Alliance comprises the universities of Wroclaw (Poland), Graz (Austria), Leipzig (Germany), Lyon (France), Miño (Portugal), Padua (Italy) and Vilnius (Lithuania), in addition to the UGR, which acts as coordinator. It was selected by the European Commission as one of the first 17 alliances approved in 2019. Currently, the Alliance receives funding from the Erasmus+ and Horizon 2020 programmes, as well as from several Spanish and regional governments. In parallel to the implementation of its ambitious work plan, Arqus is intensively involved in a permanent policy dialogue with the European Commission, the national authorities of the Member States, quality assurance agencies and other university networks and associations for the development of the European Education Area, the European Research Area, and the European Higher Education Area through the European University Strategy.

Contribución del proyecto a la transformación de la UGR

Esta ambiciosa iniciativa pretende producir una transformación estratégica, sistémica y sostenible de las universidades participantes y del sistema universitario europeo, a través de un proceso de profunda integración, de la eliminación de barreras de todo tipo para la cooperación en sus múltiples formas, de la construcción de estructuras y servicios físicos y virtuales conjuntos, de la flexibilización de la oferta académica a través de itinerarios abiertos, microcredenciales y metodologías docentes innovadoras, buscando sinergias entre la docencia y la investigación, y promoviendo la identidad y los valores europeos desde el pleno respeto por su diversidad. Para la Universidad de Granada, este proceso de transformación viene a continuar los profundos cambios iniciados por el programa Erasmus en 1987, hacia una internacionalización comprehensiva que enriquezca de forma transversal toda la actividad universitaria, eduque ciudadanas y ciudadanos globales comprometidos, optimice la capacidad de generación de conocimiento, y sirva mejor a la sociedad.

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