Una Europa for academic staff

Una Europa Seed Funding, joint research and innovative, visiting professorships, networking, training opportunities and more give you the tools to catalyse innovation.

Self-Steering Committees

Collaborate with academic peers at Una Europa universities through Self-Steering Committees (SSC) with a focus on six interdisciplinary areas:

Research collaboration and collaborative grant applications from member universities are supported and encouraged.

Academic researchers interested in joining one of the six Una Europa Self-Steering Committees and collaborating with Una Europa partners on joint research projects can contact Edinburgh’s Una Europa coordinating team:

una.europa@ed.ac.uk

Opportunities

Leiden University’s Una Europa team is launching a seed funding call to support cross‑border projects and partnerships with their Una Europa partners, with three funding strands available:

Early-Career Researcher (ECR) Mobility and Collaboration.
Lifelong Learning (LLO) Innovation
Strategic and Interdisciplinary Initiatives.

This call offers researchers (including PhD candidates and postdocs), teachers and non-academic staff the opportunity to apply for grants of between €5,000 and €15,000 are available to support activities such as:

research exchanges
collaborative pilot projects
co-created short or blended courses
preparatory work for external funding proposals
other initiatives which help bring Una Europa to life at Leiden University.

Proposals must be led by Leiden University staff members. If you would like to be connected to potential collaborators, email us at:

una.europa@ed.ac.uk

Date: 11 May
Location: Paterson’s Land

The Festival of Languages invites all Edinburgh staff and students for a full day of celebration of multilingualism on campus with language taster sessions, talks and drop-in cultural workshops.

The event will also showcase a series of short videos from the Una Europa Edinburgh Student Network, uniting many languages through one shared greeting.

View the festival programme and register

Date: 16 to 18 November
Location: Leuven, Belgium
Application deadline: 14 June

The Una Europa PhD Impact Award aims to recognise and celebrate the impact, and potential impact, of research and researchers. This year, PhD students are invited to apply to the Award by showcasing the impact of their research in the topics of:

Cultural Heritage
One Health
Future Materials and Technologies.

The winners will be invited to the Una Europa General Assembly in Leuven, Belgium (16–18 November 2026) to showcase their research to the alliance community and network with other researchers from their field. Travel and accommodation costs will be covered.

Apply for the PhD Impact Award

Open to applications from academics at the University of Edinburgh to work on joint teaching and research projects in collaboration with colleagues at FUB.

Maximum funding amount: 10,000€

The funding will be allocated and managed by the FU Berlin lead, but participating students and academics from Una partners will be able to use the funding for travel and accommodation expenses, guest activities etc.

Applications are accepted on an ongoing basis.

Find out more

Date: 15 to 19 June
Location: University College Dublin

Our Una Europa partner university, UCD, is organising a one-week international summer school aimed at staff and students interested in the Irish language and culture.

Language classes at five levels, from beginners to advanced, will be held each day from Monday to Friday. Afternoon lectures will be available in both Irish and English, and cultural events will be held each evening.

The next Una Europa Seed Funding call is expected to launch in June 2026.

The University of Edinburgh was a partner in 9 out of 10 awarded projects in 2025.

Successful 2025 seed funding call projects

To be notified of future Seed Funding calls, sign up for our Staff newsletter or join our Teams channel further down the page.

Are you learning a language and wanting to boost your conversation skills and vocabulary? Find your language partner with the Una Europa Language Tandem Tool and start practising today.

This free tool is offered exclusively to students at the University of Edinburgh and other Una Europa universities, and allows you to find a partner based on language goals, proficiency level and interests.

Try the Language Tandem Tool

Past projects

Previous teaching and learning collaboration across Una Europa initiatives include the creation of MOOCs, micro-credentials, and joint undergraduate and postgraduate programmes.

Una Europa Joint Programmes

The University of Edinburgh led on the Una.Resin project, supported by Horizon 2020 funding, available exclusively to European University Alliances - producing a joint research and innovation strategy.

Learn about the Una.Resin project