Founding the Inter/National University of Luxembourg in the Bologna Era

Situated in the heart of Western Europe, the University of Luxembourg (UL) is among the youngest research universities. This new venture is one of the few public universities to be founded since the pan-European “Bologna process” got underway during celebrations for the Sorbonne’s 800th Anniversary in 1998. At ten and growing rapidly, the UL is on the path to becoming a full-fledged, internationally recognized research university within a thriving globalized world of academic institutions. Recruiting scholars, staff, and students from over a hundred countries across the globe, the university relies to a considerable extent on transnational, particularly European, mobility to achieve growth. Embedded in a culturally hyper-diverse and multilingual, small but prosperous nation-state – that is well-positioned in significant regional and worldwide networks – Luxembourg’s “national” flagship university is thoroughly international. While exceptional in Europe due to its relative youth on a continent with centuries of academic history, it well exemplifies recent global trends in the development of the research university. First established in Germany and spreading globally since, the research university seeks to combine higher-level academic teaching and research.