Stemming from the so-called ‘Macron initiative’ and endorsed by the December 2017 Gothenburg Summit, the EU’s vision for higher education brought forward recently the European Universities initiative, a first concrete step supporting the ambition of creating a single European Education Area by 2025. This strategic shift is set to bring fundamental changes to the academic landscape across Europe in the near future. These changes will not only impact teaching and research but will be a paradigm change for the way in which students build their study tracks and degrees, by having the possibility of studying at several universities throughout their programmes. One of the main aims of these bottom-up ‘federations of universities’ is to offer student-centred curricula jointly delivered across European inter-university campuses. Yet little attention is so far given to the impact of internationalization on teaching, as well as the preparedness of teaching staff to adapt and effectively deliver to increasing diverse and mobile student cohorts. In this context, this paper aims to explore and benchmark teaching best practices that have proven to support and enhance internationalization. It will do so by gathering input about teaching experiences of European Studies in a European context through a large-scale survey. Its results aim to advance our understanding on the role and relevance of pedagogy and learning design in improving internationalisation and boosting international student experience and student success at European universities.
