The European University alliance ELLS (Euroleague for Life Sciences) is a forward-looking alliance of leading European universities committed to life sciences for sustainability. Rooted in scientific excellence and societal engagement, ELLS drives the transformation of agri-food systems through collaboration in education, research, and innovation.
The alliance brings together institutions with deep expertise in Natural Resource Management, Agricultural and Forestry Sciences, Life Sciences, Food Systems, Environmental Sciences, and Rural Development — including Agricultural Economics and Rural Sociology. Its joint efforts are guided by a shared mission to address global challenges related to food security, environmental sustainability, and inclusive rural prosperity.
While full membership is open to universities in EU and EU-associated countries, the European University alliance ELLS also collaborates with international partner institutions to foster global knowledge exchange and impact. Since 2013, partners such as Lincoln University (New Zealand) and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem have been part of this global cooperation, highlighting ELLS’s commitment to excellence in sustainable life sciences worldwide.
The European University alliance ELLS is committed to advancing life sciences for sustainability by fostering transformative education, world-leading research, and deep societal engagement. Its core activities—joint teaching and learning, mobility, and collaborative program development—prepare students and staff to become agents of change in sustainable agri-food systems across Europe and globally.
Through shared resources, mutual learning, and institutional collaboration, ELLS enhances the academic excellence and global competitiveness of its member universities, while creating a strong collective identity aligned with the European Green Deal and Sustainable Development Goals.
The objectives of the European University alliance ELLS are:
To develop and deliver challenge-driven, interdisciplinary study programmes that equip students with competencies for sustainability and societal transformation.
To promote student and staff mobility across the alliance, enabling inclusive and flexible learning experiences across national borders.
To ensure academic quality and innovation through shared pedagogical expertise, joint facilities, and a culture of institutional learning.
To provide transparent, accessible information about joint programmes, micro-credentials, and European degrees within the ELLS framework.
To strengthen the collective impact of member universities by aligning strategies, sharing best practices, and fostering strong European and international collaboration.
Challenge-driven science and innovation
ELLS will investigate the potential of creating a (virtual) Joint Science Centre as a platform of collaboration between scientists and students across the European University, and other stakeholders across Europe and around the world. The (virtual) Joint Science Centre will enable ELLS to conduct world-leading research and will connect the research results to actors in Government, industry, and other sectors, enabling them to make evidence-informed decisions and accelerate innovation to develop sustainable agri-food systems.
Challenge-driven teaching and learning
ELLS will foster key competencies for change-makers to develop sustainable agri-food systems. It will orient its teaching and learning experiences towards the development of these competencies, it will capacitate educators to deliver student-centered, interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary, challenge-based, research-grounded, and real-world-relevant learning, and it will build structures and cultural norms supportive of this innovative pedagogical approach within its member universities.
Challenge-driven credentials
ELLS will develop academic programs and credentials which certify students’ preparation as change-makers in the transition towards sustainable agri-food systems. These credentials can include challenge-driven European degree programs and micro-credentials. We will also enable learners to study across the member universities, and ensure academic processes are aligned and that study programs provide the competencies that change-makers need.
The governance of the European University alliance ELLS reflects its commitment to shared leadership, strategic coordination, and inclusive participation across all member universities.
Comprising the rectors, presidents, or principals of the member universities, the ELLS Board serves as the alliance’s highest decision-making body. It convenes annually to provide strategic direction and oversee long-term development.
The Steering Committee Education & Steering Committee Research consists of one appointed representative from each member university. Meeting at least twice per year, it coordinates operational activities, develops strategic and policy proposals, and ensures effective communication across institutional, national, and international levels.
The Euroleague Student Association (ELSA) is the student voice within the alliance. ELSA representatives actively contribute to all levels of governance, with one vote on the ELLS Board and two votes on the Task Force, ensuring students are meaningfully engaged in shaping the alliance’s direction.
Subject Areas are academic working groups composed of staff from all partner universities. They are responsible for designing and advancing joint teaching programmes in their respective fields.
Support Teams focus on cross-cutting topics essential to the alliance’s functioning, including legal frameworks, quality assurance, digital learning (e-learning), and mobility. These teams strengthen implementation and innovation across ELLS activities.
The EuroLeague of Life Sciences Universities (ELLS) is a strategic alliance of leading European universities founded 25 years ago that is focused on sustainable agri-food systems. We cover all pedagogical and research activities related to food production and consumption, agriculture in its broad activities of food and non-food production (including forestry), wild fish and aquaculture, and the sustainability of their interactions with landscape (urban and rural) and aquatic systems, biodiversity, as well as the bioeconomy and rural socio-ecosystems. Our alliance is also distinguished by its unique physical infrastructure, including experimental farms, living labs, and specialised research facilities, that no other European network can offer.
ELLS operates with its own organisational infrastructure, academic, administrative, and pedagogical, enabling member institutions to learn and act beyond national contexts, benefiting from a shared pool of diverse expertise and experience.
Humanity is facing a series of existential global threats directly linked to our ecological imprint. This makes our ambition to contribute to the sustainable transformation of agri-food systems crucial. The three societal priorities of ELLS are: to ensure food security, achieve environmental sustainability (especially with regard to mitigating climate change and preventing biodiversity loss), and support prosperous and resilient rural economies and communities.
Our work centres on these three deeply interconnected priorities:
Food and nutrition security, in the sense of availability of both sufficient and healthy food, is critical for stable and healthy societies. Ensuring future food security necessitates significant changes to our existing food production and distribution systems, and our food markets and preferences. Agri-food systems must become more resilient, especially in a more unstable climate and geopolitical situation. Changes in the agri-food system must mitigate its negative environmental impacts, and increase its positive contributions, for instance by enhancing biodiversity, fixing carbon dioxide and improving soil, plant and human health, and developing sustainable sources of energy, fibres and other materials, thus contributing to the European bioeconomy.
Sustainable supply of food and nutrition, and the health, stability, and prosperity of humanity depend on the health of the natural environment in a one health perspective. Yet current consumption and production systems often deplete natural resources, including water, destroy ecosystems, are detrimental to animal and human welfare, and are reducing biodiversity. Changes in agriculture must mitigate negative environmental impacts while increasing positive contributions, enhancing biodiversity, fixing carbon dioxide, improving soil and plant health, and developing sustainable sources of energy, fibres and other materials, thus contributing to the European bioeconomy.
Agriculture is among the most important economic activities in rural communities and can be an engine for economic growth. However, rural areas are rapidly emptying as many young people see them as offering little economic opportunity. The decline of rural communities imperils local cultures and ways of life, the provision of public services, agricultural production and food security, and support for environmental protection.
These three challenges are tightly interdependent. Food security that is not environmentally sustainable is undercut by deteriorating conditions. Communities often compromise environmental sustainability when food security and economic opportunities appear threatened. And deteriorating environmental conditions and food insecurity undercut wealth through price inflation and adaptation costs. Sustainable agri-food systems must address all three challenges at once.
Developing sustainable agri-food systems is in part a technical challenge, implementing the right technologies and practices from digital and data-driven technologies (e.g. remote sensing or digital twins), advanced biological innovations (e.g. microbiome engineering or cellular agriculture), and alternative and regenerative production systems (e.g. biodiversity-integrated farming systems or vertical farming) to automation and robotics (e.g. autonomous harvesting or drone monitoring). But it is also a profound societal challenge requiring changes in human beliefs and behaviour. Changemakers must operate across many fields, understanding deeply both technology and processes of political, social, economic, and cultural change.
ELLS is a leading academic actor in Europe advancing the transition towards sustainable agri-food systems through three interdependent missions: engaging with society, educating and empowering people who can lead sustainable change, and conducting world-leading research. Our societal vision focuses on the production of sufficient, healthy food for all, the preservation and enhancement of the natural environment, and the fostering of more dynamic, resilient, and inclusive rural economies and communities.
ELLS is a platform of collaboration and mobility between scientists and students across the European University, and other stakeholders across Europe and around the world. This enables ELLS to conduct world-leading research and innovation and to connect research results to actors in Government, industry, and other sectors, empowering them to make evidence-informed decisions and accelerate innovation to develop sustainable agri-food systems.
ELLS fosters key competencies for changemakers to develop sustainable agri-food systems. We orient our teaching and learning experiences towards the development of these competencies, in particular via student and staff mobility, capacitate educators to deliver student-centred, interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary, challenge-based, research-grounded, and real-world-relevant learning, and build structures and cultural norms supportive of this innovative pedagogical approach within our member universities.
ELLS develops academic programs and credentials which certify students’ preparation as changemakers in the transition towards sustainable agri-food systems. These credentials include challenge-driven European degree programs and micro-credentials. We also enable learners to study across the member universities and ensure academic processes are aligned accordingly.
ELLS and our member universities are the most appealing places to study sustainable change in the agri-food system, and more broadly are recognised as leaders on the topic in Europe and beyond. We are key counterparts for research collaboration, recognised as leading providers of evidence and insights to inform societal transitions related to our topic. Internally, students and academic and non-academic staff at all member universities, across faculties and departments, identify strongly with ELLS and its mission to foster sustainable agri-food systems.
ELLS fosters teaching innovation and works towards granting credentials in two forms: joint and European degrees aligned with ELLS competency and quality frameworks, and micro-credentials combining competency-focused and challenge-focused learning, which can be stacked into challenge-driven degrees.
ELLS runs a powerful science strategy focusing on key challenges concerning our main theme. We connect researchers with each other, provide access to scientific facilities, and assist in securing resources and partnerships. ELLS provides systematic support to connect research to decision-makers at the European Commission, in governments, and in industry—both communicating research and helping ensure its relevance.
ELLS strengthens the branding of all member universities as sustainability leaders. For the past 25 years, the ELLS brand has progressively gained greater importance and visibility, enhancing academic prestige and the ability to attract talent and partners worldwide. ELLS helps member universities overcome unfavourable demographic trends by conveying the critical role of agricultural sciences in addressing global challenges and showing they are at the cutting-edge of science, technology, and societal change.
ELLS facilitates exchange of ideas and knowledge across member universities, challenging us to think differently and strive for excellence. Member universities learn from the strongest practices in the group through ongoing exchanges and collaborations, becoming more innovative in pursuing our shared mission.
To achieve its vision, ELLS drives ambitious change, enabling member universities to individually and collectively act at a scale and ambition they could not reach alone; explores and builds the benefits of joint or mutualised structures such as the ELLS Faculty and Subject Area working groups, Innovation Platform for Teaching and Learning, and structured research collaboration; expands and deepens engagement with societal partners at the member institution and ELLS levels; supports member universities in enhancing their capacity for innovation, societal impact, and national and international competitiveness; directly engages and mobilises member university communities; and promotes Equity, Diversity and Inclusion, European values, and tackles European challenges.
ELLS ensures that its activities align with the following principles:
The ELLS members make the following commitments to each other, in support of our common mission.
