The year 2025 was crucial for Transform4Europe (T4EU), an international alliance of European universities that, since its inception, has worked across borders, languages and academic systems. It was a period of concrete actions and initiatives that strengthened cooperation and made the idea of T4EU visible as a university in everyday academic life. These actions did not change the international character of the Alliance: they made it clearer, stronger and more practical.

In fact, the Alliance brings together diverse academic communities with a global goal: to create a common European space for education, innovation and engagement with society. As a member of Transform4Europe, the Universidade Católica Portuguesa plays an active role in defining cross-border cooperation and innovation within the alliance. Being part of T4EU opens up opportunities for students, researchers and staff to participate in joint programmes, mobility programmes and international projects, while allowing each partner university to contribute its experience and perspective to a truly collaborative European network.

Among the main initiatives and achievements of 2025, the formal establishment of T4EU as a legal entity stands out. During the Strategic Assembly in Kaunas, Lithuania, the rectors of the partner universities signed the founding documents, concluding a process coordinated by Tomasz Pietrzykowski of the University of Silesia in Katowice. This step provided T4EU with a stable legal and organisational framework, made long-term international cooperation easier, more transparent and more reliable, and laid a solid foundation for joint activities in the areas of education, research and innovation.

In 2025, Vytautas Magnus University organised the international conference ‘Universities Shaping the Future’ and the Global Partnership Forum, which brought together university leaders, experts and stakeholders from across Europe. Speeches by Sauli Niinistö, former President of Finland, and Gitanas Nausėda, President of Lithuania, emphasised the role of universities in promoting democracy, dialogue and stability in contexts of global uncertainty. The meeting culminated in the signing of three new cooperation agreements with the Australian Catholic University, the Caucasus University in Georgia and the Catholic University of Mozambique, reinforcing the Alliance's global engagement strategy.

Shared leadership remained a structuring principle of T4EU in 2025. This year, the rotating presidency moved from Vytautas Magnus University in Lithuania to Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridski” in Bulgaria, ensuring balance, shared responsibility and active involvement of all partner universities. The new presidency focuses on strengthening research cooperation and promoting the responsible and human-centred use of artificial intelligence in higher education and research.

T4EU's visibility on the European scene was also consolidated with its participation in the EAIE Conference in Gothenburg, the largest European event dedicated to international education. As one of the 35 European University Alliances present, Transform4Europe had the opportunity to share its experience and vision for the future of international academic cooperation. The delegation's reflections, brought together under the title T4EU Voices in Higher Education, showed how cooperation within the Alliance translates into real impact on education, mobility and research. In addition, T4EU was represented at several European Science Festivals with the Science Cafés series of talks.

In the field of research, the T4EU Joint Fellowship Office was set up to support researchers in identifying funding and developing international projects, with a view to helping research teams work together more effectively across borders and in a multidisciplinary manner.

With regard to education, mobility and learning opportunities, Transform4Europe continued to expand international opportunities for students through agreements that allow them to study at partner universities without additional tuition fees and with fewer administrative barriers. Joint degree programmes, vertical mobility pathways and micro-credentials offer flexible and internationally oriented study options. In 2025, to make international studies simpler and more accessible, the T4EU Metacampus was launched as a central digital hub, allowing Transform4Europe students to easily explore and apply for academic offers across the Alliance. In addition, the T4EU Seed Funding Programme, with €700,000 in funding, has boosted educational innovation by supporting the creation of joint degree courses and programmes. To date, two successful calls for proposals have involved more than 120 academics in 23 ongoing projects, with two more calls planned to further integrate shared learning opportunities across the Alliance.

The community dimension and shared values continued to receive special attention and form part of the international cooperation initiatives of this strategic alliance in 2025. As a result, the T4EU Campus Life Manual and the Green University Handbook were launched, together with a comprehensive repository of good practices in diversity and inclusion. These guidelines were reflected in initiatives such as Mental Health Awareness Month, which reached 9,901 views with practical advice and daily stories, and the 1 million steps challenge, which connected all T4EU universities, with 569 participants walking together and taking a total of 290,233,489 steps in 100 days, with 68 participants reaching 1 million steps or more.

Finally, Transform4Europe strengthened its communication and digital impact with the launch of the T4EU Digital Notebook, presented for the first time at EAIE in Gothenburg, offering an interactive and comprehensive overview of T4EU's impact, achievements and opportunities, complemented by the ‘Boost the European Spirit’ page. The redesign of the website, with more intuitive navigation and advanced filtering, helped users navigate through more than 100 Alliance results and exceeded 65,000 visits by September 2025. The LinkedIn channel, relaunched in 2024, grew organically to over 800 followers, while the Focal Points 2024 campaign reached over 730,000 users.