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EUTOPIA's Educational Model

A New Model for Transnational Academic Collaboration

Connected Communities (CCs) are EUTOPIA’s response to the evolving demands of international higher education. They represent an innovative structure grounded in distributed leadership, iterative development, and the integration of education, research, and civic engagement. The model is developed to support agile innovation, one that can be initiated and sustained by academic actors themselves, without the requirement of pre-existing institutional ties.

The EUTOPIA Educational Model is designed for recognition at the micro level where academic staff, students and external stakeholders cooperate and create a European/Global dimension for learning components that are part of the existing programmes in the home universities of the alliance (Bachelor /Master /PhD/LLL). Thereby existing good practices across the alliance are enhanced in challenge-based learning by fostering resource sharing, collaboration and co-creation through supported thematic networks.

The model avoids lengthy harmonisation processes and aligns with EUTOPIA’s vision of openness and inclusion, with the potential to impact a large portion of the student body, academic communities and society. The value added of internationalisation impacts the learning outcomes of the students but does not require changes either for registration of students or for staff positions in the home universities. Staff and students stay embedded with respect to their status and registration in the home universities but profit from the inclusion in an international network, novel learning content, formats and peers.

Through this approach, EUTOPIA’s educational model focuses on empowering the existing core of its partner universities, combining innovation with pragmatism. It draws on the strength found in the diversity and value of academic offerings, whilst recognising the constraints of varying institutional, local, and national rules and budgets familiar to the transnational higher education change landscape. 

EUTOPIA Educational Model
EUTOPIA Educational Model

Bridging Structural Divides

The architecture of a Connected Community follows a three-phase developmental cycle: nomination, selection, and incubation. Communities are given 30 months to develop within a supported, yet non-prescriptive, framework that combines local facilitation with strategic guidance from a Central Team.

Each community forms around a thematic challenge, articulated and owned by the academics and students involved. Rather than being imposed top-down, CCs emerge through bottom-up initiative, allowing for ownership from the start. This model supports multiple Communities operating in parallel, each maintaining its thematic autonomy while contributing to the broader EUTOPIA learning ecosystem.

All communities, irrespective of their thematic area, respond to the alliance vision of openness and are designed to address persistent divides that constrain innovation in higher education:

  • The divide between academia and society – through transdisciplinary collaboration with stakeholders from the public, private, and third sectors and/or through the negotiation of societally relevant issues in and across communities.
  • The divide between learners and teachers – through co-created formats that engage students as active contributors to their learning environments.
  • The divide between research and teaching – by designing activities that develop staff and student competences across both domains (see more research-based learning).
  • The divide between degree-seeking students and lifelong learners – by offering flexible, modular opportunities that are inclusive and adaptable.

The Incubation Lifecycle

Once selected, the academic staff members in the community take up the responsibility for building a cross-campus thematic network with their colleagues in other EUTOPIA partner, associate partner, and/or global partner universities. This period is called the CC incubation. This incubation period which is facilitated by the WP3 Team (e.g. Coordinators, Central Monitoring and Evaluation Officer, Curriculum Developer, the dedicated institutional Local Facilitators and the Research-Based Learning Promoters) covers the following phases and timeline:

  1. (+/- 3 months) Onboarding and identification of CC task priorities by the lead and partners from the CC’s original letter of commitment. 
  2. (+/- 3 months) Exploration of shared resources, student groups and needs, calendars and related cross-campus logistics, alignment to existing good practices, individual priorities, and possible enlargement of the partnership.
  3. (+/- 2 Academic Years ) Testing and delivery of cross campus activities for learning and research skills and development, meeting regularly and supported by the WP3 team.
  4. (Year 2) Strategic Reflection and Consolidation These are timed to take place when communities have generated a portfolio of tested activities and outputs. The sessions serve as an integral part of the lifecycle for each community, marking the critical transition from experimentation to consolidation. 

EUTOPIA Community LIfecycle
EUTOPIA Community LIfecycle

Participating in Community Activities 

As the communities evolve from a start-up phase to greater levels of maturity, they create a range of outputs in line with their integrated ambitions for education, research and innovation. Students across levels (BA/MA/PhD/LLL and external) can take part in activities based on the activity formats developed. In some cases students have access to the cross-campus offering because their teachers are directly leading and/or co-creating targeted cross-campus learning activities embedded into their course offerings with teacher peers on other campuses. These are communicated by the teachers and on the community webpages. Alternatively, when communities design and co/create activities that are partly and/or fully opened up to the alliance student body for transnational participation. These are communicated broadly through various means (local university communication and dissemination pathways, EUTOPIA communication newsletter, socials etc.) 

Discover the EUTOPIA Communities

Today EUTOPIA counts 60 connected community partnerships. These were started up as part of the former EUTOPIA 2050 and the current EUTOPIA MORE Projects. More specifically, this includes:

  • 30 Connected Learning Communities (CLCs) started up as part of the first pilot project EUTOPIA 2050 Project 2019-2022 (learn more about the communities HERE)
  • 30 Integrated Connected Communities (CCs) started up as part of the EUTOPIA MORE Project 2022-2026 (learn more about the communities HERE)

Reports / Publications

S’Jegers, R., Angouri, J., Klein, K., & Triquet, K. (2025). Deliverable 3.1: Strategy for the Establishment, Evaluation, and Monitoring of a New Form of Connected Communities. DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.20465.60003

Triquet, K., Szabó, M., S’Jegers, R., & Angouri, J. (2025). EUTOPIA Recognition of Learning: Tools and Developments. Describing the EUTOPIA Communities, Learning Formats, Student Reach and Means for Recognition. EUTOPIA MORE Project WP3 Empowering Knowledge, EUTOPIA European University Alliance. DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.10399.27041
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​​​​​​​Angouri, J., Moriau, L., & S'Jegers, R. (2024). Connected learning communities: A model for transnational education. LATISS Learning and Teaching in the Social Sciences, 17(2), 1. https://doi.org/10.3167/latiss.2024.170202

Strategic Notes (EUTOPIA 2050 2019-2022) describing the Educational Model and Lifecycle 1st strategic note , 2nd strategic note, 3rd strategic note, 4th strategic note