ENGAGE.EU is an alliance of nine leading European universities in business, economics, and social sciences, which aims to empower a new generation of European citizens by equipping them with the set of skills and competencies needed to tackle the grand societal challenges, such as climate change, energy transition, economic deglobalisation, shifts of geopolitical order, digital transition, ageing society or migration. Through collaborative efforts and comprehensive interdisciplinary approaches, drawing from business, economics and social sciences and other disciplines such as humanities, law, public health and STEAM we strive to drive innovation, promote sustainability, and have a positive global impact. We enable our learners to act as socially engaged European citizens and to serve society at large as experts on business, economics, and social sciences. The alliance will exploit the unique synergies of its members, transforming our institutional collaboration to a new dimension guided by a joint strategy and a common goal. Each university brings a unique perspective shaped by its academic areas of specialisation as well as geographical and economic context, to create value together beyond what could be achieved alone. The alliance is currently academic home to over 125,000 students, academics and staff who will benefit from ENGAGE.EU. Our alliance transforms all activities and core academic missions of its nine partners: Engaged Learning, Engaged Research and Innovation and Engaged in Society. ENGAGE.EU will emphasise strategic priorities through lighthouses: (1) ENGAGE.EU Programmes, piloting the ENGAGE.EU learning experience based on research-based learning, (2) ENGAGE.EU PhD programmes, piloting different PhD trajectories with embedded mobility, and (3) ENGAGE.EU labs, open and dynamic innovation spaces for knowledge-creating teams of learners, researchers, innovators, companies, citizens’ initiatives and policy makers, embodying our challenge-based framework.