The final signing of the UNIgreen consortium has taken place in Brussels. This is an alliance of universities that will lead to study programs, research projects, and knowledge transfer in these and other scientific fields, jointly developed by the eight participating higher education institutions located in Iceland, Bulgaria, Portugal, France, Italy, Poland, Belgium, and Spain.
The University of Almería leads a consortium composed of eight prestigious European universities that are working hand in hand towards the fulfillment of what was established by European leaders in 2017 regarding higher education. It was then, from the Swedish city of Gothenburg, that the desire and need to strengthen strategic partnerships among higher education institutions on the continent and create around 60 ‘European universities’ were expressed. The pilot calls for proposals in 2019 and 2020 were highly successful, with a large number of applications received, leading to the final approval of 41 European university alliances. In 2020, despite the various difficulties arising from the global pandemic, UAL decided to take a step forward in this direction, leveraging its potential in the fields of agronomy and biotechnology, and initiated the construction of a consortium with prestigious partners in these scientific fields, the UNIgreen Project. This initiative will ultimately lead to the creation of a ‘European university’ focused on sustainable agronomy, green biotechnology, and environmental and life sciences. However, in the medium term, it will transcend these areas of study to encompass the entirety of UAL’s degree programs.