On 13 May 2026, the city of Aachen hosted the award ceremony of the International Charlemagne Prize — one of Europe's most prestigious honours for contributions to European integration. This year's laureate was Mario Draghi, former President of the European Central Bank and former Prime Minister of Italy. For ENHANCE, it was a moment that resonated deeply — and one our member university RWTH Aachen turned into a powerful engagement opportunity for the Alliance.
Mario Draghi's significance to Europe is hard to overstate. After his engagement as ECB president, his 2024 report The Future of European Competitiveness — commissioned by the European Commission — has become a defining document for the EU's strategic direction in both the debate around the union of skills and the Eureopan Education Area. For the higher education sector, the report carries particular weight: it calls for an increase in the Erasmus+ budget, a doubling of funding for the next research and innovation framework programme (FP10), and places universities at the centre of Europe's capacity to innovate, close skills gaps, and remain competitive in a rapidly changing world. In short, Draghi's vision is one in which European universities like those in the ENHANCE Alliance are not peripheral actors — they are central to Europe's future.
At his speech at RWTH Aachen prior to the award ceremony, Draghi reflected on what binds Europeans together: the rule of law, joint action on climate change, protection of minorities, solidarity, and peace — values he described not merely as political principles, but as a shared European identity. And he offered a guiding thought on how change comes about: not through uniformity, but through genuine exchange. "We do not always need to agree, but we do need to learn from one another and work towards common solutions."
ENHANCE at the ceremony
Exchange, collaboration, and common solutions are at the heart of what ENHANCE does every day. The Alliance — bringing together ten leading technical universities from across Europe — was represented at the ceremony through colleagues from RWTH Aachen's International Office, who made sure the Alliance's presence was felt well beyond the ENHANCE booth in front of the auditorium.
In a particularly memorable moment, a video compilation featuring students from ENHANCE member universities was shown on stage directly before Draghi's acceptance speech — giving student voices from Gothenburg to Warsaw, from Delft to Valencia, a place at the very heart of the ceremony. Guests were also invited to stop and reflect at an information booth, where the question "What does Europe mean to you?" opened genuine conversations — the same question ENHANCE students across the continent had already answered in the video.
A heartfelt thank you to RWTH Aachen
None of this would have happened without the initiative, creativity, and dedication of our colleagues at RWTH Aachen University. Embedding ENHANCE into an event of this scale and significance — securing a slot for the student video on the main stage, staffing an engagement booth, and actively bringing the Alliance's values into conversations with a high-profile European audience — required real effort and vision.
It is exactly this kind of commitment to the partnership that makes ENHANCE stronger. On behalf of the entire Alliance: thank you. You represented all ten of our universities with distinction, and you brought the spirit of ENHANCE to one of Europe's most important stages.
It was an engagement that put ENHANCE exactly where it belongs: in the conversation about Europe's future.
