EURECA-PRO Flagships:
The Communities Shaping the Strategic Challenges of the European Alliance
In order to maintain its status as a European university, the EURECA-PRO alliance aims to implement its strategic actions in education, research, and innovation around the theme of responsible consumption and production. This strategy is guided by multidisciplinary academic communities known as “flagships”.
The English term “flagship” can be translated as “flagship vessel”. It is used in European strategy, particularly within the EURECA-PRO alliance, to refer to long-term, large-scale research initiatives that pave the way for an ambitious vision in identified and strategic fields.
Within the EURECA-PRO alliance, the term “flagship” designates multidisciplinary academic communities in both teaching and research, involving multiple internal partners and, potentially, one or more external partners.
These communities aim to generate and disseminate knowledge on a specific issue aligned with one of the five strategic challenges identified as key markers of the alliance:
- Circular economy and natural resource management for sustainable materials.
- Fair and multi-scale societal transition towards sustainability and responsibility.
- Energy transition and sustainable energy management.
- Industry 4.0, including technology, organisation, and human perspectives for responsible industry.
- Impacts of transitions on global health.
Ultimately, these academic communities should function as “laboratories without walls”, capable of driving scientific momentum, enriching educational programmes with new knowledge, and even initiating joint programmes or degrees.
They should also be able to integrate new expertise as they evolve, contribute to European research and education project calls, and establish relationships with socio-economic partners to create a conducive environment for innovation, knowledge transfer, and science with and for society.
Initiatives
Currently, three flagship initiatives are identified within the EURECA-PRO alliance:
- Sustainable mining resource exploitation.
- Carbon and hydrogen synergies.
- Humanities for supporting transition.
These three flagships will likely be established in autumn, and in the long term, six or seven additional flagships could form the core of the alliance.
