Who we are
EUniWell is the European University for Well-Being. As one of the European Universities alliances supported by the European Commission, we unite 12 member universities and more than 60 associated partners across Europe. At the centre of our work is a broad understanding of well-being as the interplay between individual, societal, and planetary dimensions. This perspective informs our Alliance’s mission to understand, improve, measure, and rebalance the well-being of individuals, university communities, and society as a whole.
Our member universities are:
Together, these universities contribute expertise across disciplines, institutional systems, languages, and local contexts. This diversity is central to EUniWell’s work as an alliance. It allows well-being to be addressed through different academic perspectives and through practical cooperation with communities, public institutions, civil society, and other partners. EUniWell’s platform model provides the framework for this cooperation. It connects projects, initiatives, funding lines, and local activities to a shared alliance mission, while leaving room for member universities to contribute through their own expertise, structures, and regional connections.
A shared commitment to well-being
Well-being is at the heart of EUniWell’s work. It gives the Alliance a shared purpose and connects its activities across disciplines, institutions, and communities. For EUniWell, well-being is multidimensional: it brings together individual quality of life, social cohesion, environmental balance, and the conditions that allow people and communities to flourish.
This makes well-being a timely focus for European university cooperation. It offers a way to think about progress beyond Gross Domestic Product (GDP), placing humane, societal, and ecologically sustainable development at the centre. It also connects directly to global challenges reflected in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), including health, quality education, gender equality, reduced inequalities, climate action, and peace, justice, and strong institutions.
By placing well-being at the centre of its work, EUniWell connects research, education, innovation, civic engagement, and institutional development around questions that affect people’s lives and the societies around them. This shared focus gives the Alliance a clear reason to collaborate across borders and provides a common direction for the collaboration that has developed since EUniWell was established.
From shared vision to European University Alliance
EUniWell was established in 2019, when seven universities came together around a shared vision to create the European University for Well-Being. In 2020, the Alliance was selected for funding by the European Commission under the Erasmus+ programme.
The first funding phase allowed EUniWell to develop the structures, working processes, educational opportunities, research cooperation, student participation formats, and communication activities needed to turn this shared vision into practice. Following this successful pilot phase, EUniWell entered its second Erasmus+ funding phase in 2023.
Since then, the Alliance has continued to grow in size, scope, and strategic ambition. Its current development is guided by EUniWell 2030 which sets out three strategic focus areas: becoming a Voice for Well-Being, becoming a European University, and becoming Communities for Well-Being.
As part of the European Universities Initiative, EUniWell contributes to a wider European effort to build deeper, more sustainable cooperation between higher education institutions. The Alliance does this by creating shared opportunities for students, researchers, and staff, supporting mobility and exchange, strengthening research and education on well-being, and developing forms of collaboration that benefit people, communities, and society beyond individual campuses. Through FOREU4ALL, EUniWell is also connected to the wider community of European Universities, supporting peer exchange, shared learning, and the continued development of the initiative.
Thematic Arenas
EUniWell’s thematic work is organised through five “Thematic Arenas”. These Thematic Arenas are priority areas that connect research, innovation, education, civic engagement, and institutional collaboration around different dimensions of well-being. They help structure the Alliance’s activities while giving member universities space to contribute their expertise from different disciplines and local contexts.
The five Thematic Arenas are:
Through the Arenas, EUniWell brings together students, researchers, educators, staff, associated partners, and local communities. They provide a framework for developing joint activities, sharing knowledge, supporting mobility and exchange, and connecting university-based expertise with wider societal needs.
Making lives better
EUniWell’s work is grounded in democratic, inclusive, diverse, research- and challenge-based, inter- and transdisciplinary, entrepreneurial, and co-creational values. These values shape how the Alliance works across institutions and borders, and how it connects education, research, innovation, and societal engagement with the well-being of people, communities, and society.
Across its activities, EUniWell works towards one shared purpose: “Making lives better.”
