FORTHEM
Fostering Outreach within European Regions, Transnational Higher Education and Mobility
FORTHEM Alliance is one of the first 17 alliance winners of the European Universities Initiative call for proposals launched by the European Commission in 2017 which aim is to bring together a new generation of creative Europeans able to cooperate across languages, borders and disciplines to address societal challenges and skills shortages faced in Europe.
We are a new network of seven multidisciplinary public research universities with a strong regional anchoring. Each university comes from a diverse country, has distinct cultural heritages and languages, educational and administrative systems, economic and political realities, and varying stances regarding the European Union.
At the core of our network is the Weimar Triangle (Dijon, Mainz, Opole), reaches the Scandinavian and Baltic region (Jyväskylä, Riga) as well as the Iberian Peninsula (Valencia) and finally also connects the south of Europe (Palermo).
OUR MISSION
We share a long history of cooperation and are experimenting new innovative forms of collaboration with the aim of creating a permanent multilateral and European cooperation environment.
We believe our model will facilitate innovativeness in education and a close linkage between education, research and innovation in the best possible way.
Our goal is to educate open-minded European citizens committed to our common democratic values, together solving the obstacles for seamless student and staff mobility and providing students with 21st century skills such as problem-solving, critical thinking, creativity, flexibility, self-direction and good communication skills because we believe in intercultural dialogue and in Europe’s multiculturalism and multilingualism.
BUILDING A SOCIETY FOR OUR FUTURE
The title FORTHEM implies the idea to work for THEM: our students, our staff members and furthermore our local communities, we also want to reach stakeholders such as private companies and public bodies on regional, national and European levels. We support the principle of open science. We see this alliance as a way to extend cooperation with civil society, through knowledge-creating FORTHEM Labs, research and innovation projects, collaborations with schools in different cities and regions and finally inciting members of society to get involved in actions run by the Alliance. We believe this approach will bring a valuable contribution to the social, economic and educational development of our regions.
Broadly speaking, with its impact on different levels of the political, social and cultural arena, the Alliance will improve national security, support international diplomacy, peace, mutual understanding and citizen development. To go even further, our position and our origins also allow us to develop cooperation with non-European partners, contribute to the European neighbourhood policy and give us access to the francophone and hispanic world.
FORTHEM Alliance in numbers
7 universities in 7 different countries
> 200,000 students
> 127 research institutes
> 17,000 academic staff
> 13,000 administrative staff
> 18 campuses
> 35 associate partners
