Universitas Models and networks of university cooperation in Central and South Eastern Europe

Progetto UNIVERSITAS was aimed at the monitoring of the resources available in the cross-border Italo-Slovene area, with a view to the implementation of international university cooperation in Central and South-East Europe. In particular, the project intended to explore the feasibility of the following three models of cooperation: the network (university networks working on single projects and managed through existing resources and facilities), the interfaculty (joint faculties created by using human resources from the universities belonging to the network), and the new university (creating a brand new international university with its own staff, as well as its own teaching and research programmes) models.

The territories of the future Euroregion involving the Italian regions of Friuli Venezia Giulia and Veneto, the Republic of Slovenia, the Austrian land of Carinzia, the Counties Istria and Primorje-Gorski Kotar of Croatia, was an unavoidable reference for any cooperation proposal. Nevertheless, the wider region of South Eastern Europe on one the hand, and with the Western part of Hungary and the Slovak and Czech Republic on the other were considered as strategic areas for successfully implementing cooperation.