Posted on 26 June 2019
CIVICA has been selected by the European Commission as one of the pilot European Universities. A total of 48 applications were received, of which 17 have been selected and awarded funding, as Commissioner Tibor Navracsis announced on June 26. CIVICA’s application received 92/100 points.
Bocconi University (Italy), Central European University (Hungary), the European University Institute (European Intergovernmental Organisation), the Hertie School of Governance (Germany), the National University of Political Studies and Public Administration (Romania), Sciences Po (France, lead institution for the project) and the Stockholm School of Economics (Sweden) are honoured to be given the opportunity to pioneer the European Universities initiative by launching CIVICA, the European University of Social Sciences. CIVICA will also be joined by the London School of Economics and Political Science (United Kingdom) as an Associated partner. With CIVICA, all partners are fulfilling their civic responsibility towards future European generations, and further strengthening the role of Europe in the world.
The new pan-European alliance will implement an ambitious array of activities at all levels (BA, MA and PhD), and will focus on four key challenges: Challenges to Democracy in the XXIst Century; Societies in Transition and Crises of Earth; Europe Revisited; and Data Driven Technologies for the Social Sciences.
CIVICA will connect 38,000 students from across Europe and the rest of the world to a community of 7,000 faculty members and some 3,000 administrative staff. CIVICA will unite leading European higher education institutions in the social sciences, the humanities, business management and public policy to create a broad European inter-university campus that links teaching and learning, research and innovation, and mobilise society at large across cultural, linguistic, and national borders.
In a joint press release issued by the alliance, Professor Renaud Dehousse, President of the EUI, comments that "The social responsibility of leading European institutions of social sciences and humanities is to train the next generation of Europeans to make them able to understand and influence an increasingly complex world, and to create a European critical mass to advise policy-makers on the great challenges faced by societies."
Congratulating all applicants to the competition, CIVICA looks forward to working alongside other pilot projects to tackle the biggest issues facing society and, in doing so, contribute to the international competitiveness of European universities.