The Coimbra Group is celebrating its 40th anniversary
In 2025, the Coimbra Group celebrated its 40th anniversary. This marks nearly as many years of the University of Montpellier’s involvement in its working groups and in the exchange of best practices. Its mission: to promote the excellence of European universities on the global stage.
Founded in 1985 at the University of Coimbra in Portugal and officially established in 1987, this network has for 40 years been committed to bringing together “long-established, research-intensive, multidisciplinary universities with an exceptional international reputation that foster collaboration and innovation across Europe.” A particularly active international network that the University of Montpellier joined as early as 1991.
The Coimbra Group also aims to influence European education and research policy. “It is the oldest network of European universities. It was created, in particular, to enable these universities to serve as trusted partners for the European Commission in developing its strategy and building projects on a European scale,” explains Pierre-Antoine Bonnet, who has represented UM within the Coimbra Group for the past dozen years.
Strategic partnerships
The Coimbra Group is also strongly committed to strengthening intra-European collaboration. Education, research, innovation, and social responsibility are all areas of shared interest and potential cooperation, facilitated by thematic working groups and the exchange of best practices. The University of Montpellier has thus been able to share its experience regarding the European HR Excellence in Research label, having been the first French institution to receive it in 2015.
The diversity of these interactions among the members of the Coimbra Group explains the longevity of their strategic partnerships.“Since it is a broad network of 42 universities, consortia of varying sizes are formed to respond to calls for proposals,”explains the former professor at the Faculty of Pharmacy. In fact, eight of the nine members (including UM) of the Charm-EU alliance of European universities belong to the Coimbra Network. The UM’s at UM also provide an opportunity to strengthen existing ties.
This is because inter-academic collaborations also develop at the staff level.“Since the international relations departments know each other very well, the network can also support female faculty members and Professors collaborations,” notes Pierre-Antoine Bonnet. Students are also directly involved, particularly through the European competition 3-Minute Thesis, a science communication competition open to doctoral researchers all member universities of the network.