YUFE has secured funding under the Erasmus+ European Degree Exploratory Actions, a new European Commission initiative supporting higher education institutions in adapting existing joint programmes and developing new ones that pave the way towards a European Degree Label.
Among the successful projects announced by the European Commission is EDL-STEP (Scalable Transition towards Joint European Degree Programmes), coordinated by Łódź University of Technology (Poland). The project brings together nine universities from the YUFE, EPICUR, and ECIU European University Alliances to jointly design, pilot, and evaluate innovative Joint Programmes aligned with the European Degree Label framework. Within YUFE, Maastricht University, the University of Antwerp, and the University of Rijeka participate as full beneficiaries, while the YUFE AISBL is an associated partner.
The EDL-STEP consortium consists of the following institutions: Łódź University of Technology (Poland) as the coordinator, Maastricht University (the Netherlands), University of Antwerp (Belgium), University of Rijeka (Croatia), Kaunas University of Technology (Lithuania), Tampere University (Finland), University of Strasbourg (France), Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (Greece), and University of Freiburg (Germany). The project will run for 36 months, starting in autumn 2026.
Together, the partners represent the complementary strengths of the YUFE, EPICUR, and ECIU alliances, combining expertise in educational innovation, challenge-based learning, interdisciplinary education, and international collaboration. The consortium will experiment with new approaches to developing flexible and future-oriented curricula and evaluate innovative models for delivering Joint Programmes. The project will generate practical evidence to support the future implementation of the European Degree across diverse higher education systems in Europe.
More information on the project and the associated partners is available on YUFE’s official website.