20 October 2026

The European Digital Campus: Lessons learned from Unite!

On 13 October 2026, the Unite! Alliance hosted a hybrid event at KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm dedicated to the practical realities of building a federated digital campus for European higher education.

How can EU university alliances build a truly federated digital campus? This question stood at the centre of the interactive session "European Digital Campus: Lessons learned from Unite!". Building on the latest Unite! report and recent developments within the alliance, digital experts from the nine Unite! universities moved beyond theory to explore the technical and organisational backbone of a shared higher education ecosystem across institutional and national borders.

The event was opened by Joakim Petersson (KTH), who welcomed participants on site and online. Work package lead Martin Ebner (TU Graz) then introduced the agenda and presented the work of the Unite! Technical Commission, the body coordinating and advancing the alliance's digital agenda. Further presentations were contributed by Sandra Schön (TU Graz), Jesús Alcober (UPC), Christian Hoppe (TU Darmstadt), Roberto Bertonasco (PoliTO) and Juha Martikainen (Aalto University)  and moderated by Katharina Gasplmayr and Markus Koschutnig-Ebner on site and online (both TU Graz). In addition, numerous further experts from the Digital Campus team engaged with participants' questions in the online chat throughout the session.

The short presentations covered a broad range of topics central to cross-border digital teaching and learning:

• Mapping the digital landscape – approaches to exchanging information about and visualising the diverse IT infrastructures of partner universities to foster transparency, alignment, and collaboration,

• Federated learning ecosystems – experiences with enabling seamless cross-border access through Moodle and eduGAIN,

• System integration – practical insights into the use of Learning Tools Interoperability (LTI) connections for unified access to digital services,

• Infrastructure standards – progress and current developments in the implementation of the European Student Card Initiative (ESCI) across the alliance,

• Governance and decision-making – the role of the Unite! Technical Commission.

A hybrid space for exchange

The hybrid format attracted considerable interest far beyond the alliance itself. In total, 78 people took part in the event, including the organisers. 43 of them came from other universities and alliances – two of whom attended on site in Stockholm, while 41 joined online. Among the online participants were, among others, representatives of the university alliances EUPeace, AURORA and EUniWell (European University for Well-Being).

Target audience and outlooks

The session was designed for IT architects, LMS administrators, digital strategists, higher education leaders, and all professionals involved in the digital transformation of teaching and learning. The event confirmed that there is substantial interest – both within Unite! and among other alliances and expert groups – in exchanging experiences on the development of a federated digital campus.