European University Alliances as informal geopolitical infrastructures: knowledge, actorness, and EU external positioning

In an international system increasingly shaped by great power competition, the European Union is under pressure to project influence beyond traditional instruments of state-led foreign policy. This paper argues that European University Alliances constitute an under-theorised yet consequential layer of the EU’s emerging geopolitical presence. Rather than treating higher education as a peripheral soft power domain, the paper conceptualises university alliances as informal geopolitical infrastructures through which the EU extends visibility, connectivity, and normative influence beyond its borders. Building on original empirical evidence, including comparative survey data from 52 European University Alliances covering 201 universities, as well as qualitative interviews with executive directors and senior leaders of alliances, the paper examines how alliances operate at the intersection of knowledge production, transnational cooperation, and external engagement. It shows how their extra-EU partnerships, governance arrangements, and knowledge networks contribute to the EU’s global positioning in ways that are neither fully state-driven nor purely cultural. These dynamics become particularly salient in contexts marked by geopolitical tension, contested norms, and competition over influence, where alliances sustain long-term relational presence even when formal diplomatic channels are constrained. The paper contributes to debates on EU actorness and strategic autonomy by advancing a non-state, infrastructural perspective on geopolitics. It demonstrates that European University Alliances function as durable, decentralised platforms of engagement that complement—and at times compensate for—the limits of formal EU external action. By foregrounding knowledge-based cooperation as a site of geopolitical relevance, the paper invites a rethinking of how the EU competes, projects influence, and maintains connectivity in an increasingly fragmented global order.