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The European University Alliance—ENLIGHT and the Higher Education Authority (HEA)—will support twelve teaching, learning, and research collaboration projects at University of Galway.

ENLIGHT is an alliance of 10 universities, in 10 European countries, including University of Galway, which is supported by the European Commission and the HEA as it works towards the creation of a European University.

As part of the 12 ENLIGHT projects at University of Galway, academics will work in collaboration with their counterparts in eight countries on areas such as ageing, plastic pollution impacts, decolonising higher education, human rights and sustainability.

The projects are a result of a €4m fund being made available by ENLIGHT for collaborative projects in teaching, learning, research and outreach across the alliance, with more than €500,000 funding being allocated to support the 12 initiatives involving University of Galway and our ENLIGHT partners.

The funding was announced as part of the ENLIGHT general meeting which took place last week at the University of Bern in Switzerland. The focus of the meeting was on embedding the alliance in each partner institution.

Of the 12 collaboration projects supported, 2 Irish Centre for Human Rights projects featured in the latest announcement:

• Dr Illan Wall, Irish Centre for Human Rights, School of Law, College of Business, Public Policy & Law in partnership with Ghent University, Bordeaux, Tartu on - CLS: Educational Network Teaching and Studying the Basics
• Dr Roisin Mulgrew, Irish Centre for Human Rights, School of Law, College of Business, Public Policy & Law, with Uppsala, Groningen, Ghent, on WoSHuR2025: Workshop on the Online School on Human Rights 2025

In 2023, the European Commission announced ENLIGHT would be supported with a four-year, €14.4 million investment, with the intention that a significant portion of the funding would go towards academic initiatives, emphasizing the project’s commitment to supporting scholars.

University of Galway’s involvement in the European University Alliance is also supported nationally by the HEA.

The ENLIGHT alliance is made up of of 10 universities, in 10 European countries, with the shared goal of the creation of a European University. It includes: University of Galway; Comenius University, Bratislava (Slovakia); University of Groningen (Netherlands); University of Bordeaux (France); Gent University (Belgium); University of Tartu (Estonia); University of Gottingen (Germany); University of the Basque Country (Spain); Uppsala University (Sweden); and University of Bern (Switzerland).