The Ecotopia certificate, European diploma, funding: how CY is involved in the Eutopia alliance

Paris - 20/04/2023 at 18:00 - Article n°286823 - Published by News Tank

“We want there to be more massive support for alliances and their initiatives from EU member countries, not just France. As promoters of European universities, we have an important role to play with our ministers and governments to tell them how big the issue of creating a European area of higher education and research is." 

This is what Luciana Radut-Gaghi, VP of international relations and strategic partnerships at CY Paris Cergy University, told News Tank on 04/19/2023.

Within the European alliance framework EUTOPIA, of which CY is a member, this ambition is reflected in creating the Ecotopia initiative, a “network of degrees in economics, whose models are coordinated between six of the ten establishments of the alliance. The University of Stellenbosch in South Africa, a global partner of Eutopia, is a mobility partner”. At CY, “the program started in September 2022; for others, it was in January 2023, depending on the constraints,” she said. Thus, “the first promotion will obtain a EUTOPIA certificate. We hope that this will evolve into a European diploma. Ultimately, we want to create a master’s degree as a joint degree, which we hope will be recognized as a European degree in the coming years. This will focus on the economy and transitions, an essential subject today.” Luciana Radut-Gaghi returns to the European Commission’s call on the “European diploma” label in this interview. EUTOPIA introduced one of the winning propositions through a consortium of alliances with the EdLab project. “Everyone positions on the projects that are priorities for their institution.”

Can you go back to the constitution of EUTOPIA and its current composition?

In September 2017, Emmanuel Macron delivered his speech at the Sorbonne, notably putting forward the idea of connecting universities in Europe and creating a space for cooperation so that they are more visible and more robust.

In 2019, 17 European alliances, including EUTOPIA, were awarded in the first wave of the call for projects published by the European Commission. In 2022, 16 were renewed. Including the second wave of projects of 2020, there are currently 44 European alliances. The objective for the Commission is to reach 60 within one or two years.

The EUTOPIA alliance brought together six universities in 2019 and the pilot project was coordinated by the University of Ljubljana in Slovenia. Among these six institutions in the pilot project was the University of Warwick in the United Kingdom, which, despite Brexit, continues as a member. In 2021, we expanded the alliance by welcoming four new institutions:

• Babeș-Bolyai University in Romania;
• Ca’ Foscari University of Venice in Italy,
• the Technische Universität Dresden in Germany
• and Nova Lisboa University in Portugal.

The Pompeu Fabra University-Barcelona became the coordinator of the new central project, EUTOPIA MORE, in 2022.

Has the enlargement of the EUTOPIA alliance had an impact on its functioning?

We quickly realized it was easier to function at ten than six! At six, everyone feels it a duty to participate in all initiatives, but at ten, we know this is impossible. Thus, everyone positions themselves on the projects that are priorities for their institution, according to their areas of expertise. We learn from each other, and we become complementary.

In this logic, we have built the second matrix project, corresponding to the alliance's consolidation phase (EUTOPIA MORE). Each university has therefore positioned itself on the coordination of actions in which it is the driving force. Between 2019 and 2022, EUTOPIA secured a series of other funded projects, including:

• A Marie Skłodowska-Curie Cofund for post-docs, coordinated by CY (76 contracts over five years);
• an Erasmus project to develop a common continuing education scheme, FLECSLAB;
• Additional €2 million under Horizon Europe to strengthen research (each alliance has benefited).

Each of the alliances seeks to develop its own identity. One of the particularities of Eutopia is the global partnerships: that is, non-European universities with which we wish to develop training programs, research and joint initiatives, with which we engage in science diplomacy.


Within the EUTOPIA alliance, how is CY positioned?

As the EUTOPIA projects progress, everyone’s positions crystallize. CY coordinates the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Cofund. In the EUTOPIA MORE project, we co-coordinate work on building and incubating connected communities with bottom-up initiatives that give themselves three years to become autonomous. These communities participate in the future Eutopia College, which will bring together the joint offer, including Ecotopia, and the EUTOPIA Global Institute, that gathers collaborations in the field of research. In this context, we coordinate the Young Leaders Academy, whose role is to support researchers at the start of their careers in academic leadership while making them ambassadors of their institutions and the alliance.
Finally, EUTOPIA's Impact and Dissemination Unit is located at CY, which coordinates all the work on communication and promotion of the alliance, conducts a watch of the impact on a local, European and global scale, and also supervises the science diplomacy actions of the alliance.

“The ambition is great and we are giving ourselves the means to achieve it.”

How did the Ecotopia initiative come about?

In January 2020, Mathieu Martin, director of the eco-management institute at CY Tech, told us of his desire to collaborate with Eutopia colleagues around the DU Economics and Corporate English, taught in English, which already existed at CY. For three years, with Charlotte Simunek, they built a network of degrees in economics with our partners, the models of which are coordinated between six establishments of the alliance. The University of Stellenbosch in South Africa, a global partner of EUTOPIA, is a mobility partner. In CY, the program started in September 2022; for others, it was in January 2023, depending on the constraints. This represents 45 students this year, all of whom will be on mobility from September. Each university remains sovereign in terms of student selection.

What is the premise of this project?

The principle is that students follow a course in economics, management and business in their respective languages, as well as conferences and joint projects in English:

• The first year, they have, in particular, three online plenaries, but also student projects during which they must collaborate. Slovenia also has a compulsory summer school to bring together all face-to-face students.
• In the second year, students go on mobility to one of the participating institutions, including Stellenbosch. These “circular” mobilities between program members result from detailed negotiations between the parties.

In the final year, students return to their home institution and continue to have joint conferences and projects. At the end of the program, they are offered an optional summer school in Rabat on the Essec Business School campus on the theme of innovation and entrepreneurship in Africa.
The first promotion will obtain a EUTOPIA certificate, and we hope this will evolve into a European diploma. Ultimately, we want to create a master’s degree as a joint degree, which we hope will be recognized as a European degree in the coming years. This will focus on the economy and transitions, an essential subject today.

The ambition is great, and we are giving ourselves the means to achieve it. We want more massive support for alliances and initiatives from EU member countries, not just France. As promoters of European universities, we have an essential role to play with our ministers and governments to tell them how big the issue of creating a European area of higher education and research is.


EUTOPIA is among the winners of the European Commission’s call for projects around the “European diploma” label. What are the goals set, and what do you expect from them?

As part of this call, only a few places were offered. We decided to partner with other alliances not to miss this opportunity to be part of the “European diploma label” pilot projects. EdLab is thus supported by a consortium of alliances represented by the universities of the countries of the South of Europe: EUTOPIA, Arqus, Sea-UE and Enlight.

We have three goals:

• Test the 14 criteria of the call on Ecotopia-type initiatives across the EdLab consortium;
• Validate the translation of criteria into quality and quality assurance indicators in European joint training. This work contributes to a larger one — the assessment of European alliances, “UFOs” in the HE landscape;
• Test the idea, the concept, and the European diploma system with EUTOPIA’s global partners, but not only. The objective is to understand if the European diploma can make Europe and the European alliances more visible and if it could act as a factor of attractiveness.

The European diploma, the legal entity for European alliances, certainly advances European coordination in higher education. If instruments for research cooperation exist, none today cover all the functions that European Universities like EUTOPIA give themselves: training, research, innovation, and service to society.

There is a job to do. We, French universities, are participating as best we can by strengthening dialogue at the national level. We also encourage all member universities to do the same in their countries. Finally, something unusual until a few years ago, we participated directly in work coordinated by the European Commission.

Original interview published by NewsTank