The European Consortium of Innovative Universities (ECIU), a network of universities united by a common profile of shared beliefs, interests, and mutual trust.
The ECIU was founded in 1997, and the name underlines the European dimension of a selected group of entrepreneurial universities. The consortium remains dedicated to ensuring a culture of innovation in all of our institutions, and to providing a catalytic role for innovation in business and society at large. Kaunas University of Technology joined the Consortium in 2016 and is the only Lithuanian university in the network.
Since 2019, the ECIU members have been creating a joint European university – ECIU University. It is the first European university where learners, teachers and researchers cooperate with cities and businesses to solve real-life challenges.
In the pilot phase (2019-2022), ECIU University have sourced over 160 cases for European wide challenges from over 100 providers. More than 600 learners worked on challenges on real-life problems, and more than 150 teachers co-created the ECIU University offers.
In 2020, the ECIU Council approved the long-term vision of the ECIU University for 2030. The core of the vision is to create an ECIU University ecosystem and introduce a sustainable funding model. The ecosystem would bring together study, lifelong learning, research and innovation activities across the 14 ECIU members and would allow the sharing of resources and the development of a virtual European campus (VR Campus) and the creation of a strong community of learners, teachers, researchers and administrative employees.
In autumn 2022, the second phase of ECIU University began, focusing on three innovations in higher education: flexible learning pathways, a challenge-based learning method and micro-credentials.
“Imagine being able to learn and solve challenges in a lecture, joined by students from all 14 universities in the ECIU network. All challenges are related to issues that are important to all of us – our home, our city. For example, parking problems, supply chains of various products, energy saving, food waste, sorting of waste and many more. The ECIU University is fundamentally changing the concept of higher education,” – says KTU Rector Eugenijus Valatka.
The activities of the ECIU University are focused on solving the challenges of higher education in Lithuania and Europe, and the implemented actions are in line with the 2021-2025 KTU Strategy, the priorities of the Lithuanian Government Programme and the vision of the future of Lithuania “Lithuania 2050”.
