EPICUR-SHAPE-IT-PLUS: building a fully integrated European university campus
EPICUR-SHAPE-IT-PLUS supports the alliance’s transition from successful pilots to a fully institutionalised, digitally enabled inter-university campus across 11 universities.
About the project
Building on six years of cooperation, the project consolidates confederal governance, shared academic quality assurance and interoperable digital services.
The goal is for joint learning, embedded mobility and recognition to operate at scale and become “business as usual” within partner institutions, as EPICUR continues to evolve into a Confederation of Universities.
At a glance
Funding: €7.2 million in bridge funding, Erasmus+ European Universities
Call: ERASMUS-EDU-2026-EUR-UNIV
Duration: 24 months, November 2026 – October 2028
Target groups: students, professional services and lifelong learners
New members: Pablo de Olavide University (Spain), Roma Tre University (Italy), University of Basel (Switzerland)
A growing alliance
For the third time, EPICUR reaffirms its place among Europe’s most innovative and ambitious university networks.
Founded in 2019, the alliance now unites:
- 280,000 students,
- 29,000 academics,
- 17,000 administrative staff
- across 11 universities and 9 countries.
What we will deliver
Governance and sustainability: institutionalised governance, communities of practice, and incentive and scholarship policy frameworks
A digital campus: an operational Inter-University Digital Campus (EPICURUS v3.0), with strengthened support units: Mobility and Course Management Office, Help Desk, Academic Quality Assurance Unit and Digital Lifelong Learning centre
Joint education at scale: a broader, harmonised course catalogue, mobility embedded in curricula, and better recognition pathways, including steps towards automatic recognition
Academic engagement: incentives and seed funding for co-teaching, challenge-based and research-based formats
Learning pathways: scalable pathways from undergraduate to postgraduate and lifelong learning, prepared under the EPICUR Label as a step towards European Degree Label readiness
Future skills: an EPICUR Future Skills ecosystem, supported by the EPiC TLC and the Research Skills Hub
Our vision
“Thanks to EPICUR, today’s students are, and will continue to be, the key players who will make our world a sustainable and desirable place to live.”
Prof. Dr. Jean-Marc Planeix, Vice President for International Partnerships, strategic coordinator of EPICUR from 2019 to 2026.
