The Coimbra Group (CG) is an international association of 41 universities in Europe. It was established in 1985.^[2] It works for the benefit of its members by promoting "internationalization, academic collaboration, excellence in learning and research, and service to society" through "creating special academic and cultural ties", by lobbying at the European level, and by developing best-practice.^[3]

History

The Coimbra Group was founded in 1985 and formally constituted in 1987 by a charter signed between its members, then numbering 19.^[4] In 1994 it published Charters of Foundation and Early Documents of the Universities of the Coimbra Group.^[5] A second edition was published in 2005, by which time Caen had left the group while Bergen, Geneva, Graz, Lyon, Padua, Tartu and Turku had joined.^[6]

In 2013 the group consisted of 40 universities,^[7][8] but by the following year this had fallen to 37 with the departures of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (Greece), the University of Cambridge (UK) and the University of Oxford (UK).^[9] Since then, the Group has added Vilnius University (Lithuania) in June 2015^[10] and Durham University (UK) in June 2016.^[11] This brought the membership of the group to 39,^[12] but it subsequently fell to 38 in October 2016, when the University of Lyon (France) decided to leave the Group.^[13] At the General Assembly in June 2017, the University of Cologne was invited to join as the 39th member, while Utrecht University joined the group in December 2020.^[14]

Members

As of April 2023,^[update] the Coimbra Group includes 40 universities in 22 countries:^[15]

Institution	Country
University of Graz	Austria
Katholieke Universiteit Leuven*	Belgium
Université catholique de Louvain*	Belgium
Charles University, Prague	Czechia
Aarhus University*	Denmark
University of Tartu	Estonia
Åbo Akademi University, Turku	Finland
University of Turku	Finland
University of Montpellier	France
Paul Valéry University Montpellier 3	France
University of Poitiers*	France
University of Göttingen*	Germany
Heidelberg University*	Germany
University of Jena	Germany
University of Cologne	Germany
University of Würzburg*	Germany
Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest	Hungary
University of Galway*	Ireland
Trinity College Dublin*	Ireland
University of Bologna*	Italy
University of Padua	Italy
University of Pavia*	Italy
University of Siena*	Italy
Vilnius University	Lithuania
University of Groningen	Netherlands
Leiden University*	Netherlands
Utrecht University	Netherlands
University of Bergen	Norway
Jagiellonian University, Kraków	Poland
University of Coimbra*	Portugal
Alexandru Ioan Cuza University, Iași	Romania
University of Barcelona	Spain
University of Granada*	Spain
University of Salamanca*	Spain
Uppsala University	Sweden
University of Geneva	Switzerland
Istanbul University	Turkey
Durham University	United Kingdom
University of Bristol	United Kingdom
University of Edinburgh*	United Kingdom

Former members

• University of Caen* (France)
• University of Cambridge (UK)
• University of Lyon (France)
• University of Oxford* (UK)
• Aristotle University of Thessaloniki* (Greece)
• Saint Petersburg State University (Russia)

(* denotes founding member)^{[citation needed]}