Charm-EU: An Exemplary Degree
With enrollment now open for its sixth cohort, the joint master’s degree program offered by the nine member universities of the Charm-EU alliance—including the University of Montpellier—is positioning itself as a model of excellence for a Europe seeking to establish a European degree label.
Applications for the Master’s program in Global Challenges for Sustainable Development have been open since January 15. Not just at the University of Montpellier. This is also the case at all the other universities that make up the Charm-EU alliance. That is, nine universities located in eight European countries, separated by hundreds, even thousands of kilometers. And united by a shared desire to help build the European education and research area of tomorrow.
An interdisciplinary and sustainable education
Launched in 2021 by the five founding universities of the Charm-EU alliance, the joint master’s degree program was opened up at the start of the 2025 academic year to the nine universities that now make up the alliance of European universities. This international degree, titled “Global Challenges for Sustainability” in English—the language of instruction—is at the heart of Charm-EU’s educational mission. Open to students holding a bachelor’s degree in any discipline, this unique two-year European program on sustainability enables students to learn by solving concrete societal challenges, prepare for excellence in research, and develop within transdisciplinary and international teams. Its goal: to train “complexity managers”—sustainability specialists—who can then work as consultants, project managers, or experts in educational institutions, consulting firms, government agencies, NGOs, and more.
In the first year, students are introduced to issues of sustainability, social innovation, and transdisciplinary research. They then choose a specific thematic focus: water, health and life sciences, food, or energy and sustainable cities. In the second year, students apply their knowledge during a professional internship (at an NGO, company, institution, or laboratory) before undertaking a project in collaboration with peers, researchers, and stakeholders from the economic or social sectors to address a concrete sustainability challenge at one of the alliance’s universities.
An interconnected European campus
One of the distinctive features of this international master’s degree, which is recognized as a master’s degree in France1, is mobility. In fact, it is a requirement: students must study at at least two universities within the Charm-EU alliance during their program. They may even undertake up to three different mobility experiences, not to mention the internship, which can also be completed abroad. As for the instruction itself, it is delivered simultaneously by joint interdisciplinary teams through the use of hybrid classrooms located on each campus. This creates a truly interconnected European campus across the entire alliance.
A model for Europe
“Beyond its obvious educational value, the Charm-EU master’s program is particularly noteworthy from the perspective of the structure of higher education and research in Europe, as it already embodies all the characteristics of what a European degree should be,” emphasizes Gilles Subra, Professor IBMM and Charm-EU Project Manager at the University of Montpellier. “In fact, most of the criteria for this European label were directly inspired by the Charm-EU Master’s program, one of the first of its kind.” As the European Commission launches a call for exploratory actions on the European degree label, Gilles Subra has no doubt that the joint Charm-EU Master’s program will be awarded the label “since it already meets all the prerequisites for a European degree.”
Advice for prospective students: The European adventure begins in Montpellier and runs through February 22. At the end of the program, participants will receive a unique certificate issued by the nine prestigious institutions that make up the Charm-EU alliance.
For enrollment inquiries at the UM:
Want to learn more? Come meet us! The faculty team for the joint master’s program “Global Challenges for Sustainability” looks forward to seeing you on February 14 at the Charm-EU booth during UM’s Open House. From 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. onthe first floor of Building 36 in the Faculty of Sciences, Triolet Campus.
- Please note that there is no application fee for European students who completed their final year of study in France. ↩︎