Enhance Alliance of European universities receives funding

A joint “European campus” is in future to make it easier for students to study abroad without any major obstacles – this is the goal of the Enhance Alliance of European technical universities, of which ETH Zurich has been a member since last year.

This will be made possible, for example, by a catalogue of courses open to students from partner universities and which count towards their programmes of study. In addition, the Enhance members are working on jointly developed courses that are to be completed individually with “micro-credentials” and recognised by the members of the alliance.

In order to technically support this mobility, ETH is also participating in the development of a decentralised digital system for the exchange of proof of academic achievements using what are termed “verifiable credentials”, together with experts from IBM Research, Switch and the Bern University of Applied Sciences.

Enhance has received funding of around fourteen million euros for the implementation of this and other plans by 2026 from the EU’s Erasmus+ programme. To implement its share of the joint ENHANCE+ project, ETH Zurich has applied for financial support from Movetia, the Swiss Agency for Exchange and Mobility. Movetia is participating in the funding because Swiss universities are currently excluded from Erasmus+.