When a European university alliance launches, the partnership agreement is only the starting point. What happens next depends on the academics who carry it into their day-to-day work, their courses, their research, their professional relationships.
Two professors who taught at the "Ports of the Future" summer school in Le Havre this June explain what that involvement looks like in practice.
EUNICoast brings together 13 partner institutions from coastal, island and port territories across Europe. Its aim is to build joint programmes, shared research, and lasting connections between institutions. Whether that aim translates into something real is a question each faculty member answers for themselves.
The occasion
The EUNICoast summer school "Ports of the Future", held in Le Havre from 15 to 19 June 2026, was organised by Université Le Havre Normandie under the Campus Polytechnique des Territoires Maritimes et Portuaires, co-funded by Erasmus+ and supported by the French National Research Agency (ANR) under the France 2030 programme. The week brought together students and faculty, from across the alliance and beyond, for lectures, field visits and working sessions at the port, the university library, and across the city.
Two paths in
Luka Juri, Head of the Department of Political and Social Sciences at the Euro-Mediterranean University (EMUNI), and Ludmiła Filina-Dawidowicz, Head of the Department of Logistics and Transport Economics at the West Pomeranian University of Technology in Szczecin (ZUT), both taught during the week. Their routes into EUNICoast were different.
Luka's involvement began the moment he joined EMUNI in November 2024. His first task was to develop educational programmes in sea and marine studies within the alliance. "Because of EUNICoast I'm working at the university," he said. That work has produced a proposal for a joint master's in port management and brought him to the EUNICoast capacity building in Le Havre in January 2026. Ludmiła has been a member of ZUT staff for over 20 years, she was invited to act as HUB2 coordinator at ZUT, attending the BIP Erasmus+ in Palma and General Assembly in Dubrovnik before arriving in Le Havre for her teaching assignment within the alliance.
In the classroom
Both professors adapted their sessions for a student cohort that crossed disciplines and nationalities. Ludmiła built hers from first principles toward live examples of port digitalization, automation, and a student-led discussion on cost efficiency followed. "It was truly inspiring to hear that the students are actively reflecting on the diverse challenges faced by ports," she said. Luka traced how geopolitics and climate change are reshaping Mediterranean ports through narrative rather than technical analysis, giving the argument a wider reach. The Q&A ran over its slot; students were still seeking him out after the following session.
What the students said
The students arrived from across Europe and beyond. One had never left the United States. Another had grown up near a port without knowing how it worked. "Before I came here I didn't have any idea about ports," they said. "I have many insightful things about blockchain and logistics now."
What it produces
For Ludmiła, involvement in EUNICoast has meant contact with researchers working on the same questions from different national contexts — something that is very important for her institution. "There are new challenges and new tasks," she said. "I appreciate being involved in this initiative." For Luka, the more significant outcome is structural. He is candid about where real progress happens: not in official meetings, which "can be very abstract," but in the working conversations alongside them. "All the meetings I had here in Le Havre, except one, were very concrete," he said. "Not what could we do, but: this is the project, how do we do it?" The joint master's in port management advances through exactly this kind of exchange with colleagues from partner universities.
Looking ahead
Both professors see the current period as the beginning of something longer. Luka draws on his own Erasmus exchange in 2000, when credits earned in Spain went unrecognised at his Italian university. "Today, 26 years later, it's different. EUNICoast is a step towards real interchangeability." Ludmiła's message to colleagues still weighing whether to get involved is straightforward: "Don't be afraid. Take that first step to gain new insights, broaden experience, and establish meaningful professional and personal connections."
