Charm-EU 2025 Annual Conference: Strengthening European Competitiveness

European competitiveness is the main theme of the 2025 edition of the annual Charm-EU conference. Titled “Strengthening European Competitiveness: European University Alliances as Catalysts for Innovation and Sustainability,” the event is being organized on November 12 by Utrecht University (Netherlands), one of the nine member universities of the prestigious European University Alliance. On the agenda: inspiring plenary sessions (also available on the Charm-EU YouTube channel) and impactful workshops.

What concrete actions can European university alliances take to support competitiveness across Europe? This is the central question of the 2025 edition of the annual Charm-EU conference.

A pioneering model

In just a few years, European university alliances—now numbering 65 (involving more than 560 universities)—have played a key role at the heart of the higher education ecosystem. For the past six years, Charm-EU has demonstrated their transformative potential in concrete terms, notably by awarding one of the very first joint master’s degrees in Europe, implementing a pioneering challenge-based learning model, and contributing fully to the European Council’s deliberations through the European Degree ED-Affiche pilot project…

Bringing together staff involved in the alliance, representatives from partner universities, policymakers, and stakeholders from national and international civil society, this 2025 annual conference, “Strengthening European Competitiveness: European University Alliances as Catalysts for Innovation and Sustainability” aims to enrich the debate on competitiveness and translate it into effective and impactful action. It is an opportunity to demonstrate how alliances provide essential support for the European Union’s Competitiveness Compass.

Strategic Issues

Through inspiring, high-level keynote speeches, the morning plenary sessions will address the strategic challenges facing alliances in terms of their contribution to European competitiveness and the sustainable transition. They will also explore the alliances’ pivotal role in implementing a Skills Union grounded in inclusion, diversity, and sustainability. Before engaging in an open discussion of the practical challenges and opportunities shaping competitiveness in Europe, while not forgetting to highlight the essential and structuring role of cross-sectoral and transnational alliances in promoting innovation and agility in a constantly changing global environment.

Focusing more closely on professional development, mobility, inclusion, interoperability, internationalization, and transdisciplinarity, the afternoon workshops (in-person only) will provide an opportunity to continue the discussions and work together to develop concrete and sustainable initiatives for the future of European higher education.

Please note: Real-time captions will be available during the live stream of the morning plenary sessions (in English) on the Charm-EU YouTube channel.

For more information, see the article on the 2024 edition of the CHARM-EU annual conference.