In November 2019, The Art Academy of Latvia launched the EU4ART Alliance pilot project in collaboration with three European higher education institutions in Rome, Dresden and Budapest devoted to fine arts.

The goal of EU4ART is to develop a European University fine arts curriculum and to address issues pertaining common curricula and different fine arts discipline modules. The alliance has the mandate to foster institutional collaboration at an unprecedented level, thus ensuring systematic, structured and sustainable implementation.

The project will be carried out over a span of three years; the goal is to develop common international curricula in the fields of painting, sculpture, graphic arts for all three study levels. A common fine arts curriculum will allow students to tailor their education in accordance with their interests. They will have the opportunity to decide in which institution to study and conduct research on their chosen subject to earn a European degree.

The over-arching objective of the alliance is to raise the bar of European higher education, as well as to foster competiveness, collaboration between institutions, and mobility between Budapest, Dresden and Rome for both students and teaching staff.

The end goal is to develop a new education curriculum based on an interdisciplinary and international approach, incorporating the use of innovative pedagogical methods and digital technologies. The curriculum will serve as an example for other European universities. The long-term goal of the project is to create a European Virtual University of Arts by 2025.

In order to achieve these aims the following tasks have been set forth:

1. Development of a flexible fine arts curriculum.

2. Renewal of methodological resources. This will be achieved by organising common exhibitions and individual research work between academic staff (seminars and course work), gaining experience in mobility programs, analysing effective application of pedagogical approaches in practice, and broadening tried and tested methodological approaches with new ones.

3. Establishment of an extensive member network. The EU4ART Alliance will be integrated in local structures on various levels at all four institutions.

4. Language research in fine arts. The goal is to create a multilingual fine arts dictionary (both verbal and visual).

5. Development of methodological manuals in Latvian, Hungarian, German, Italian and English.

6. An emphasis on foreign language learning for both students and staff.

 7. The creation of a mentor system in order to foster mobility.

The project is organised in 5 work packages.

WP1: Project management
WP2: Analysis and harmonization of education structure
WP3: Methodological renewal
WP4: Fine arts and language
WP5: Project sustainability and dissemination of results

EU4ART Alliance members:

Lead partner:
The Hungarian University of Fine Arts, www.mke.hu/en

Academy of Fine Arts of Rome, www.abaroma.it
Dresden Academy of Fine Arts,  www.hfbk-dresden.de
Art Academy of Latvia, www.lma.lv

Project EU4ART Alliance total eligible costs:

Total budget – 6 250 000.00 EUR, inclusive of EU financing – 80 % or 5 000 000.00 EUR

Budget allotted to the Art Academy of Latvia – 1 096 874.00 EUR, inclusive of EU financing – 80% or 877 499.20 EUR, state budget financing – 20 % or 219 374.80 EUR

Project implementation timeline – 1 November 2019 to 31 October 2022 (36 months)

Project Manager

Jānis Gailīts
Art Academy of Latvia
Head of the Department of Projects and Development
Tel.: +371 22303221
E-mail: janis.gailitis(abols)lma.lv
E-mail: eu4art(abols)lma.lv