ERUA and 34 other European University Alliances signed an open letter in support of Ukraine higher education and research in Ukraine. Spanning across 35 countries the Universities members of these alliances said: “United in solidarity with higher education and research in Ukraine”
Signed in Strasbourg on the 7th of May 2025 the letter stated:
“We as alliances state our continued solidarity with Ukraine, in an unstable and preoccupying international geopolitical context. In this perspective,
- We call for the EU and its Member states to play an active role in supporting the current Ukrainian needs in the higher education sector and more particularly for the displaced universities. We advocate for education and research being fully part of the solution in the resilience and the reconstruction initiatives for Ukraine, as it is stated in the Ukraine facility plan.
- Based on our fields of excellence in education and research, we can contribute to cooperation projects funded under the Ukraine facility investment schemes and are happy to connect our national contact points and work with them. We are willing to assist our counterparts and the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine in covering current needs in re-skilling, up-skilling and in research.
- We call for the specific neighbourhood programmes and the financing in the context of the accession negotiations of Ukraine to the EU to offer opportunities for calls to which alliances could apply. It would help us structure our action and make a more concrete commitment in view of the preparation for accession.
- We call for the European Commission, on an exceptional flexibility basis, to allow using the alliances’ funding under Erasmus+ for performing activities with involvement of the Ukrainian partners and for events in Ukraine where the added value to our projects objectives is justified. In fact, some Ukrainian partners have already best practices to share which can be beneficial to our deliverables.
After several years of cooperation, we are ready to play an active role in assisting in a crisis, learning from each other and growing for a common European future. We know what can be done and that we can do it, and we need support in achieving it”.
The full text of the letter and the list of Alliances you can download here
