UPVD: Kick-Off of France 2030 and Erasmus+ Support for the ACROSS Alliance at UPVD
Most of Across member universities benefit from national co-financing to implement activities foreseen by the project but not covered by the Erasmus+ grant. In this regard, since June 30, 2025, and for a period of four years, Université Perpignan Via Domitia (UPVD) has received financial support from the French National Research Agency (ANR), within the framework of the national investment program “France 2030”, to help ensure the effective implementation of Across by UPVD, which is a particularly ambitious project for our university.
The kick off event of the ANR project ANR-24-GURE-0001was organised at the main UPVD campus on October 22nd, 2025, with the participation, on the UPVD side, of the President, Mr. Yvan AUGUET and a large part of the university’s management and experts, part of the Across team : the Vice-President of the Board of Directors, the Vice-President for Research, the Vice-President for International and Cross-boarder relations, the Director General of Services, the Director of Research Administration, and the Referent of the Euro-regional network of incubators, within the UPVD Incubator (UPVD in CUBE).
Guests were representing :
- the ANR (two experts from the Directorate of Major State Investment Programs – DGPIE)
- the Ministry of Higher Education and Research (Project Manager for the European Education Area at the Department of Strategy for the European Higher Education and Research Area)
- and the Secretariat General for Investment.
This co-financing project covers the two main pillars of the Across Alliance:
1. TRAINING: Teachers mobility within the Alliance (outgoing and incoming) ; conception of new teaching modules at UPVD with Across partners ; Language training for UPVD staff ; Intercultural seminars for UPVD staff ;
2. RESEARCH AND INNOVATION: Joint doctoral contracts ; Researcher mobility (outgoing and incoming) ; Hackathons for business creation organized by UPVD.
As Across is a project aimed at transforming the university, the President of UPVD recalled that the UPVD administration is particularly committed to ensuring that the Across Alliance has a structural and long-term impact on the institution. He emphasized that the national co-financing from the ANR, in addition to ERASMUS+ funding, was essential because the latter did not cover an important part of the Alliance’s activities and objectives, which are particularly ambitious. This €1 million contribution demonstrates the support of its supervisory bodies to help UPVD succeed in contributing to the European Higher Education and Research Area as part as cross-border regions (student and staff mobility, doctoral contracts, visiting professors, hackathons, etc.).
The representative from the Ministry of Higher Education and Research was in charge of monitoring and evaluating European universities, particularly the network of French universities belonging to a European Alliance (Working Group « GT UEFR »). UPVD is a member of this Working Group and, actively participates in the group’s meetings, as itw as the case in the annual meeting organised in Paris in December 8th and 9th, 2025. France is under close scrutiny regarding Alliances, given that this initiative was launched by President Emmanuel Macron. An analytic report on the transformations observed in French universities which are members of an Alliance has been very recently published (nov. 2025).
Following the kick-off meeting, the entire delegation proceeded to the auditorium where the “Open Access week 2025“ in Perpignan was being organised within the framework of the Across Alliance and on the occasion of International Open Access Week 2025. This event allowed researchers and students from UPVD and other member universities of the Alliance to better understand the issues, challenges and opportunities offered by open data in the scientific field.
