The PIONEER Alliance aims to shape the future of inclusive, sustainable and resilient cities providing students and lifelong learners dedicated skills in a European environment. PIONEER draws upon the complementarities and strengths of its Higher Education Institutions (HEIs), relies on long-standing bilateral cooperation between partners which will bring their integration to the next level thanks to an innovative systemic, structural value co[1]creation orchestration model.

PIONEER is a European alliance dedicated to serving the needs of inclusive, sustainable, and resilient cities. It will strive to expand knowledge and enhance our education offer across our communities to help enable cities to meet the ecological, societal, and economic challenges they face. Acting as an orchestrator of the quadruple helix model linking academics, public institutions, private organisations and citizens, PIONEER will develop common education, research and innovation initiatives contributing to the EU Green Deal and “Fit for 55” package and 12 of the UN SDGs.

Bringing together 9 beneficiary universities and an associated Swiss university, PIONEER will build an open campus offering a truly European education to all students through joint interdisciplinary programmes, close interactions with territories and opportunities for  physical and digital mobility to nurture their linguistic, intercultural and international skills. Founded on the principle of value co-creation with society, the PIONEER campus will connect students and scholars with external partners across 33 urban ecosystems. Committed to spreading European values and fostering inclusion and diversity, the PIONEER Knowledge Hub will enable them to work together on 8 programmes tailored to tackle the challenges faced by the cities of tomorrow.

Relying on an agile and integrated governance, the PIONEER joint strategy and work plan have been designed to build the Alliance into an open and sustainable European campus fully contributing to the development of the EEA and ERA. They have been structured both to enable the transformation through cross-cutting activities on mobility, inclusion, European values, HR policies and digital tools, to experiment it by connecting education, research and local ecosystems’ communities, and to scale it up throughout PIONEER universities with the gradual operationalisation of the Knowledge Hub.