ECIU University is an alliance that brings together a group of innovative European universities with the aim of rethinking teaching and research. The purpose of the Consortium is to create a European ecosystem of learning and innovation in which students, faculties and researchers collaborate with external partners to address real societal challenges.

ECIU strongly believes in Challenge Based Learning (CBL) as a practical and collaborative approach that can help solve the challenges of contemporary society. 

ECIU University is a space where you can experiment and share the results of your work, particularly in teaching and research. It offers the opportunity to develop new teaching methods, build international networks, participate in innovative training courses and contribute to the creation of an interconnected European academic community. 

If you teach or do research at UniTrento, you can organise a challenge. Challenges are learning opportunities in which students, divided into working groups, face concrete problems posed by public organizations, companies, non-governmental organizations and other local actors, in a context that encourages transnational mobility and collaboration.

Challenges can be integrated into courses or offered as curricular activities or extracurricular experiences. 

Each activity can be designed independently, or in collaboration with colleagues from the University or partner universities of the ECIU Alliance.

UniTrento provides different forms of support: financial contributions for exchanges, tutoring, funds made available through Erasmus+ and ECIU; methodological support with the School of Innovation of UniTrento and the CBL community of practice of Formid.

If you teach at the University of Trento, you can invite students to participate in challenges and micromodules organized by the universities of the ECIU Alliance online, in person or in blended mode.

If the challenge is in person, UniTrento students can request a short-term mobility Erasmus+ scholarship or another type of funding to cover part of the travel and living costs.

UniTrento students can also take part in the challenges and micromodules organised by the School of Innovation.

The participants who successfully complete ECIU activities can apply for the recognition of credits (CFU):

• UniTrento students have the credits registered in their record or as extra credits depending on the regulations of their degree programme;
• students who are visiting UniTrento on an exchange will receive a certificate to have the credits recognized by their university. 

It is recommended to collect information on credit recognition before participating in a challenge. 

For the activities organized by UniTrento and the School of Innovation, the credits are recorded in Esse3 once completed as curricular or extra credits.

The University of Trento supports the organization of challenge-based learning opportunities through an annual call that makes available up to 5,000 euros for each project proposal. The activities of the project can be:

• in person;
• online in synchronous mode;
• blended: partially online and partially in-person, following the Erasmus+ rules for short-term mobility (minimum 5 days of in-person activity + online activity);
• hybrid: in-person for UniTrento students, synchronous online for students of other Eciu universities, with the possibility of including an optional part in-person.

Project proposals to be carried out in the first semester of the academic year 2026-27 will be accepted until 15 May 2026.