“We live in a fast-changing world, facing an ever-growing set of societal, economic, and environmental challenges. While science and technology are advancing at an unprecedented pace, their potential is often constrained by recurrent crises. At the same time, citizens and professionals are confronted with an overload of information, not all of it reliable. Knowledge has never been more accessible, yet true insight risks being drowned in masses of data, opinions, and misinformation.  Disruptive developments such as automation and artificial intelligence are reshaping established practices across sectors. In this turbulent context, the importance of meta-skills is rising: adaptive and critical thinking, social intelligence, working across disciplines, digital and media literacy, intercultural competences, among others.

That’s why higher education plays a pivotal role in preparing citizens and professionals for the future.  In particular, the application-oriented approach of applied universities, closely connected to companies, organisations, and communities, have become indispensable in a changing society. This close connection to society is also reflected in their commitment to fostering and safeguarding European values.

Expertise and ability

Applied universities connect to society first and foremost through their education. They guide an increasingly diverse student body on their journey to become the professionals and European citizens of tomorrow, not narrow hyper-specialists, but versatile practitioners able to apply knowledge and skills across contexts and to act as changemakers. By flexibly combining expertise and perspectives, our students develop innovative solutions to complex business and societal challenges. An expanding educational offer for adult learners further strengthens this societal connection and enables more agile response to emerging developments. Applied universities stand at the intersection of expertise and action, precisely where the professionals of the future are shaped.

Research and impact

Applied universities not only transfer knowledge and skills, they also create them, in close collaboration with students and staff, companies and organisations. Their research is driven by impact—cultural, social, and economic. This research nourishes, inspires and shapes education. It is interwoven with the professional field and society, innovative, solution-oriented, and contributes directly to prosperity and a more sustainable society. Applied university research complements that of research universities and is equally essential. In this sense, they can be seen as universities of connected and engaged sciences.

Shaping the future

In this way, a changing society is not a threat or burden, but an interplay of challenges and opportunities, where change is not simply endured, but actively shaped. The ability to work in uncertain contexts, to remain alert and critical to opportunities, to act consciously and ethically, in personal relations as well as in the interplay between people and technology, lies at the very core of applied universities. Their alumni continuously construct and renew their professional fields as reflective practitioners and change agents. They not only embrace change within their fields but also shape it, drawing on the decisiveness, insight, commitment, and vision, fostered during their education.”

The U!REKA rectors, 

Andreas Breinbauer, Kai-Oliver Schocke, Antonio Bélo, Koen Goethals, Riitta Konkola, Naomi Graham, Geleyn Meijer, Igor Ivan.