The EUTOPIA Young Leaders Academy (YLA) is a strategic initiative launched in 2021 by the six initial partners of the EUTOPIA Alliance within the framework of the EUTOPIA 2050 ERAMUS+ project and enlarged within the framework of the EUTOPIA TRAIN Horizon 2020 project.
The EUTOPIA Alliance has been awarded a second ERAMUS+ project EUTOPIA MORE starting in December 2022 and gathering ten European universities. While the Young Leaders Academy’s first cohort of fellow was enrolled under EUTOPIA 2050 and EUTOPIA TRAIN projects, two new cohorts are supported under EUTOPIA MORE project between 2023 and 2026 for a two-year appointment in the Academy.
The core mission of the EUTOPIA Alliance is to promote a connected and inclusive academic community, addressing global and local challenges, advancing excellence and inclusion, geared towards impact and fostering European economic development and innovation through a deep engagement of the Alliance with its local and regional ecosystems.
The EUTOPIA Young Leaders Academy is a major step toward this goal. Building on the EUTOPIA Alliance ecosystem, the YLA aims at creating a network of high potential, early to mid-career researchers, coming from all EUTOPIA partner universities. Members of the Academy will constitute a community of promising independent research leaders at the scale of the alliance, sharing and promoting European values and the EUTOPIA vision of an interconnected academic environment.
The Academy is designed to contribute to the European Research and Innovation Area by:
- Strengthening Europe’s human capital base by enhancing the research potential and career perspective of young researchers
- Supporting disruptive research to achieve knowledge-breakthrough in major research areas and innovationintensive domains
- Reinforcing the link between academic research and societal stakeholders to promote knowledge and technology transfers and innovation
- Supporting the emergence of a European University network by deepening the integration of the knowledge and innovation ecosystem of the EUTOPIA Alliance.