On the 10th of July 2026, the Ministry of Education and Science of the Republic of Bulgaria, hosted an online workshop titled “International strategy of EUAs, cooperation with non‑EU HEIs, and promotion in third countries” within the Future4Alliances’ project. 104 representatives from national ministries, national promotion and quality assurance agencies and higher education institutions participated in the event, highlighting the high interest in this topic.
The event was a platform for sharing experience, discussing challenges and presenting solutions regarding the international dimension of European university alliances.
A key topic was quality assurance challenges, including the increasing complexity of external quality assurance as alliances expand across programmes, institutions, and countries; differing national legislative frameworks and accreditation requirements; different quality assurance models; the risk of duplicated procedures for joint programmes; and the uneven implementation of the European Approach for Quality Assurance of Joint Programmes. The implementation of the Joint European Degree Label was highlighted among the possible solutions to these challenges. A proposal for the JEDI-ACT project was presented as a way to overcome some practical issues.
Higher education institutions from Bulgaria shared their experience and institutional perspectives in cooperating with higher education institutions in non-EU countries, while taking part in their respective European university alliances. The Technical University of Sofia explained their practice in promoting the EUT+ alliance by establishing Erasmus+ partnerships with 18 universities from countries outside the EU and signing 109 Memoranda of Understanding with universities in 32 non-EU countries, while also using the EUT+ Mobility map to empower students to naturally become ambassadors of the EUA possibilities through student-to-student communication.
The University of National and World Economy shared their successful practices and lessons learned as a member of the ENGAGE.EU alliance. The ENGAGE.EU alliance has adopted a holistic approach where instead of focusing only on student mobility the alliance integrates education, research and societal engagement into one collaborative European ecosystem that created greater value for students, researchers and external stakeholders alike.
A representative from the Italian Ministry of University and Research focused on the role of the national ministries in supporting global engagement of European university alliances and explained the opportunity of alliances to cooperate beyond Europe and to help in tackling some global challenges. In their view the international dimension is expressed through elements like multilateral governance, student and staff mobility, joint learning formats and international programmes, research collaboration and civic engagement.
Overall, the workshop put forth ways of addressing the afore-mentioned issues when it comes to the international strategy for developing European university alliances on the global landscape from the point of view of ministries, quality assurance bodies and higher education institutions.