FilmEU is enabling a necessary metamorphosis of the tertiary sector amongst the member states, one which each alliance member welcomes. FilmEU is an association of eight leading higher education institutions from across the member states and all parts of Europe. Led by Lusófona University from Portugal, it includes VŠMU - The Academy of Performing Arts, Slovakia, TLU - Tallinn University, Estonia, LMTA - The Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre, LUCA School of Arts in Belgium, VIA University College, Denmark, IADT - Dún Laoghaire Institute of Art Design and Technology in Ireland and NATFA - The National Academy for Theatre and Film Arts “Krustyo Sarafov”, Bulgaria.

Having achieved so much in the initial phase, our ambition now and over the next ten years is to build something significant. Something that will last by implementing and expanding all the solutions we have designed together.

Something that will shape the education landscape for the screen arts in Europe and beyond. FilmEU will impact strongly across our entire institutions, but also across and beyond the cultural and creative sectors and industries in Europe and beyond. It will impact positively on society and inform the discourse on themes as diverse as sustainability, inclusion and climate and capacities such as research mobility, innovation and digital transformation.

Our core discipline of Film and Media will profit as will every other part of the alliance. It will extended to all the subject areas found in our HEIs, thus promoting the renewal of a broad church of disciplinary fields. By moving from a project mindset to a programmatic approach, FilmEU will empower each partner to become more than the sum of its parts. It will permeate our external engagement and internal structures. It will inform and shape not only the future of FilmEU itself but each individual partner as we seek to ready ourselves for the national and European Higher Education sector that is to come.

Much like the relationship between the EU itself and nation states, the EU Universities will at once exist side by side with our home institutions to the benefit of all.

Film is an essential part of our cultural milieu. Film as a medium allows us to share ideas, feelings, and knowledge. FilmEU will ensure not only that Europe can tell its own stories but that the creative industries are at the forefront of economic and social prosperity. Yet, it will also push the boundaries of what is possible in research, innovation and enterprise. FilmEU is at the cutting edge of the age of imagination, an age that has the potential to create a virtuous society and economy. We have a distinct opportunity to ensure that the film and media arts are an educational, cultural, and entrepreneurial catalyst for a common good.

Objectives

TRANSFORM

• Ensure a deep transformation of our Higher Education institutions via the implementation of several transformational modules (PODs) that deepen the vectors of change identified and designed in earlier stages.
• Be one of the main providers of high-level education and research activities in the areas of Film and Media Arts at an International level via a unique offer of joint degrees and the promotion of differentiated research and innovation endeavours.
• Implement a two-folded work programme that ensures the full embeddedness of our HEIs in the European University while positioning the European University as a clear added value for the competitiveness and international positioning of our HEIs.
• Implement a number of joint structures labelled “offices” to technically support all our joint transformational activities. Complete the setup of our legal entity for the European University and to have a final governance and legal structure in place by 2028.

GROW

• Onboard and integrate 4 new partners to the Alliance.
• Embed an international dimension to all our programs and projects through further implementation of EWP – Erasmus Without Paper and the ESC – European Student Card.
• Increase our international profile via links with top international HEI in our fields outside of Europe.
• Increase our sustainability and capacity via the acquisition of additional funding gained by the Alliance for all areas of its mission coming both from national or European sources.
• Increase the number of international students, teachers and researchers across our educational and research initiatives and in mobility.
• Design a future model for a shared physical joint campus.

CONNECT

• Build a network of centres of competences named “FILMEU HUB” around joint labs.
• Promote the shared use of digital services across all our HEIs supported by the “FilmEU Cloud”.
• Implement a common quality assurance system based on already designed joint approach to Q&A.
• Connect to society and other institutions via our platform “Open FilmEU” that will showcase and externalize our results.
• Co-create with students and teachers’ clubs and societies across member HEI in order to foster cohesion and sense of community.
• Engage students, staff and teachers across institutions via novel joint activities with embedded and innovative forms of live, blended and virtual mobility that foster inclusiveness ad are supported by intra-alliance mobility.
• Implement the “Imagination Centre” as a unique knowledge Transfer structure connecting FilmEU with Industry via White Box/Transformative laboratories co-created with industry and stakeholders tough implementing the “services” element of the knowledge square.

EMPOWER

• Our existing legal entity FilmEU Association set-up under Belgium law to act as the legal entity responsible for the development of FilmEU.
• Our Alliance via the consolidation of a joint management and cooperation model that includes joint governance structures and offices, and entails strong involvement from students and stakeholders across HEIs.
• Teachers and researchers via the dedicated mobility and capacitation programme “Collegium” and our innovative pedagogies based on the “Samsara model”.
• The “European Universities” initiative by establishing contacts and developing working relations (via knowledge transfer, etc.) with other EU HEIs' alliances.
• Our community with the creation of a dedicated space for discussion and ideas generation named “Agora”.

SUPPORT

• Enable our people - staff and teachers - via continuous professional development.
• Attract and retain talent via the implementation of joint research and reward programs and a common pool for recruitment organized around our “Talent” programme.
• Setup common support and management structures that support our staff and institutions via our “Offices”.
• Promote multilingualism via our “Agora” initiative and the language learning opportunities it entails.
• Implement a DIGI_Factory as a joint structure for digital service development and support to innovation across the Alliance projects and initiatives.
• Implement a common model and joint services for student mentoring and support.

BUILD

• Foreground and embed our focus on environmental sustainability.
• Work with partners in Ukraine to help rebuild capacity.
• Build and enrich the Film and Media arts education community by empowering excluded and marginalised groups at all levels of society.
• Build a joint learning offer ranging from BA/MA/PhD to micro-credentials and short activities (i.e. summer schools) that differentiates the Alliance from existing offers and increases its profile and competitiveness.
• Promote the POD “Inclusive FilmEU” as the flagship initiative supporting inclusion across the Alliance.

LEARN

• Empower students via the offer of distinct set of joint common European degrees.
• Deepen life-long learning and micro credentials in our dedicated “Academy” that strongly contribute to reskilling and upskilling to meet new and emerging needs in the cultural and creative sectors and in society.
• Support innovation challenge based education by deepening our existing and piloted “Samsara” model.
• Promote cross-curricular and interdisciplinary activities inside our institutions.
• Embed innovation entrepreneurship and experimentation of new forms and technologies for storytelling (machine learning, data analytics, spatial internet) across curricula by deepening our ongoing work under EIT-HEI initiative and KIC funding.
• Promote new leaning opportunities at advance level via a joint Marie Curie doctoral network and our Joint PhD program.
• Extend our existing offer of joint degrees via new designed Joint BA and four new Erasmus Mundus joint Master Degrees in the coming years.
• Implement the European Degree approach and contribute to a European degree label.

RESEARCH

• Consolidate research centres of excellence in all our institutions via the implementation of joint research centres of excellence and the deepening of our existing dynamic research clusters through our ”Units” POD.
• Engage early-career researchers and the broad research community Implementing the POD “Catalyser” as model that disseminates and promotes joint research based on joint events, journals and platforms for the dissemination of research outputs.
• Reinforce a research agenda and joint doctoral approach supported by a joint IP policy under POD “Cognitio”.
• Implement our designed supervision model across our joint PhD programs.

INNOVATE

• Enable institutional stakeholders in the Film and Media industry across Europe.
• Explore the potentials of machine learning, data analytics, spatial internet, blockchains and similar in innovating storytelling, film production and distribution in Europe and providing relevant evidence for policymakers and stakeholders across the continent.
• Act as a beacon and knowledge Hub for the CCI sector in Europe via our dedicated “Observatory”.
• Be a catalyst for the transformation of the Film and Media sectors in our countries by promoting activities based on the “quadruple helix” in our “Laboratorium” and “Creator" programmes.
• Implement our Cultural and Creative industries dedicated incubator “FIHUB” following our already designed Innovation Vision Action Plan (IVAP) and our project-based incubation model.

What makes us unique

The eight partners come from diverse cultural backgrounds yet we share the language of film and storytelling. Though we are grounded in the audio-visual arts, our different approaches and cultures are our strength. It encourages us to ensure, through the arts and film, in its broadest sense, that all voices are treasured and heard. Indeed, this is something that is vital to where new technologies are being developed. We need to ensure that novel forms of storytelling are not the preserve of any one cultural block. FilmEU celebrates diversity and it is this praxis – the coming together of all our shared experiences and our differences – that makes this offering authentic and unique and carries our sense of community.

The transformative gains that the Film and Media Arts can realise extend beyond the creative industries. Film has always been transnational – it has no borders. Film is an integral part of the creative cultural sector, however, the importance of creativity and imagination as a dynamic engine for growth, progress and value cannot be understated.

Good storytelling and imagination are situated at the centre of the processes of informed innovation. They help us to make sense of the world, challenge conventional beliefs, unite us, and communicate and drive change that is more than ephemera.

As such, in addition to audio-visual media’s intrinsic cultural importance, it has prime importance in and to an increasingly cluttered world. All aspects of industrial production use story and the network of hard and soft skills required to tell stories – skills at which we are expert – to develop, research, make and sell products and services. Film and storytelling create number of positive externalities which are often underestimated. They include innovation and productivity gains across sectors, but also optimisation of design and processes. It also promotes digital transformation that goes beyond digitisation in view of rich and diverse digital cultures. These are all highly transferable and universal skills that are increasingly vital in the age of imagination. They will surely be a catalyst for European prosperity, an economic driver that not only powers the creative industries but also empowers all sectors.

Ambition for Digital Transformation cannot be separated from the Creative industries. Film has always influenced technology and technology has helped to change Film and audiovisual media. To ensure that Europe maintains it status as a leading cultural powerhouse that has at its centre film production and cultural creation, we must continue to invest in that nexus between technology, creativity and the screen arts. Research and innovation must be at its core as a transdisciplinary practice that is constantly testing, refining and improving practices and technologies of production and distribution, as well as developing entirely new technological forms and cultural modes of audiovisual representation and storytelling.

Above all else, FilmEU is and must be about people. Students, staff and our communities need to gain from their involvement. The alliance members are only as strong as the academics, researchers, lecturers and teachers, technicians, administrators, librarians and, most importantly, students who represent it. They are what make us unique and diverse every day. They would not have had the opportunities they get and will receive via FilmEU but for the EU Universities programme. It is incumbent upon us all to make sure its benefits are felt far and wide and lead us into a more accepting, culturally diverse and sustainable future.

We continue to espouse a world view that is progressive and inclusive. Society is informed and shaped by the stories we tell and how we tell them. The variety of stories that emerge from the cultural and social richness of Europe is what makes the area unique on a global scale. FilmEU will be a force for a positive social change. Issues like climate change, gender inequality, diversity and social justice are just some of the issues that inform the shared philosophy of this offering.