Ulysseus European University

Ulysseus-logo värillisellä taustalla

Lead paragraph

Ulysseus aims to become an international, open-to-the world, person-centered and entrepreneurial University that will shape Europe's futu​re.

Ulysseus in a nutshell

Ulysseus European University is one of the 50 European University alliances in Europe. The European University Initiative (EUI) is rather young and the first alliances started in 2019. Ulysseus is part of the second wave and started its journey at the end of 2020. 

Ulysseus will develop both joint and double degrees and promote research activities. The joint degrees and research activities are strongly connected to the six innovation hubs​ located in each partner university​.​ Haaga-Helia will develop Artificial Intelligence Innovation hub. 

In addition to Haaga-Helia, the partners are University of Sevilla in Spain (Coordinator), University of Genoa in Italy, Université Cote d'Azur in France, Technical University of Kosice in Slovakia and MCI Entrepreneurial School in Austria. Read more about Ulysseus community

In June 2023 Ulysseus received the confirmation of the European Commission funding for the next four years (2023-2027) and will continue its journey and become even more diverse and complementary, more plurilingual, multicultural and richer in Education, Science and Innovation as two new partner universities will join starting from November 2023. The alliance welcomes the University of Munster (Germany) and University of Montenegro (Montenegro) as full members.

Read more about the second phase of Ulysseus

Ulysseus logonauha

Ulysseus goals

We have a vision: to develop an excellency-recognized European University built upon the European values of social cohesion and respect for human rights. We strongly believe that European Universities should be open-to-the-world, solidary institutions beyond European borders. This is what our journey will lead us to:

1. To modernize our Universities

2. To contribute to the development of our regions and cities.

3. To reduce the competence gap

4. To enhance the knowledge and practise of the European values.

5. To promote and open to the world model of University.

Haaga-Helia and Ulysseus

Haaga-Helia leads the Work Package that concentrates on the competences of the future aiming to reduce the competence gap. Our goal is to prepare highly-skilled digital, multilingual and entrepreneurial European citizens through a combination of innovative learning and teaching activities. In addition to the programmes led by Haaga-Helia, we are strongly committed to promote Joint and Double degrees, joint research activities, building up the digital platform and promoting mobilities between Ulysseus partners both physically and virtually.

Below you can find information of the programmes Haaga-Helia will develop and implement in co-creation with other Ulysseus partners.

+2 Language programme

The aim is to offer a wide variety of language training to the Ulysseus Community and beyond. The name of the programme refers to a future citizen that speaks at least two languages in addition to his/her mother tongue. From October 2022 we offer Open Class A1-level online language courses in 6 different languages: English, Spanish, Italian, German, French and Russian. These courses are now available for Haaga-Helia degree students and for Open UAS students. Later in 2023 we will offer Ulysseus students a total of 32 online-courses in 10 languages on levels A2-B2 in following languages: Spanish, Italian, German, French, Russian, Chinese, Arabic, Finnish and Slovak. The +2 Language Programme is led by Haaga-Helia's Senior Lecturer  Maarit Ohinen-Salvén​ in collaboration with Ulysseus partners.

Life-long learning and high risk students programme

The aim is to offer online-courses, MOOCs and micro-credentials to help students and professionals to identify their prior and existing learning skills, assess their professional competences and develop career learning goals. These courses will be offered from spring 2023 and there are both Open Class and tailor-made courses for Ulysseus students and staff. Later in 2023 a digital tool-kit for academic advisors and teachers will be available on the Ulysseus digital platform. The programme is led by Haaga-Helia's Principal Lecturer Marjaana Mäkelä in collaboration with Ulysseus partners.

Entrepreneurship and Design Thinking programme

The aim is to create a programme including already existing courses about entrepreneurship and design thinking from Ulysseus partner Universities in addition to new MOOCs on current themes that will be developed in Haaga-Helia in co-creation with Ulysseus partners. The courses are now available for Haaga-Helia degree students and Open UAS students. ​In addition there will be two summer camps held in Haaga-Helia in 2022 and 2023 for a total of 80 Ulysseus students. The first camp was successfully held in June 2022 and you can view the camp video from Youtube. The programme is led by Haaga-Helia's Principal Lecturer  Sirpa Lassila in collaboration with Ulysseus partners.

Innovative learning solutions for teachers

One aim is to enhance the pedagogical competences of Ulysseus academic staff through innovative learner-centric pedagogy. This task includes a mentoring programme for Ulysseus teachers that consists of training (online-courses and workshops) in design for learning, inclusive pedagogy, work based learning and the work and study model. AI an data analytics will be introduced as tools for identifying competence gaps and needs for future learning skills. The workshops and courses will be available for Ulysseus staff in 2022-2023. An inter-campus pedagogical handbook will also be developed by the end of 2022. The programme is led by Haaga-Helia's Principal Lecturer Crister Nyberg in collaboration with Ulysseus partners.

In addition to Haaga-Helia led programmes this work package include a career development programme led by University of Sevilla and developing competences for non-academic staff programme that consists of online-courses and two summer camps (2022 & 2023) led by MCI in Austria.


​If you need any additional information of these programmes please contact the above mentioned Task Managers or Mirjam Gamrasni.​

Read more about Ulysseus