Alma Mater Europaea

Alma Mater Europaea is an international university based in Salzburg, Austria, and Slovenia, with campuses in several European cities.

Among the leading scholars, who teach or have given guest lectures at Alma Mater or its events, are Harvard Law School professor Mark Tushnet, Oxford professors Martin Kemp, Mindy Chen-Wishart, Jacob Rowbottom and Jeremy Howick, Yale professor Fred Volkmer German political scientist Werner Weidenfeld, who was the rector of Alma Mater, the Alma Mater president and cardiac surgeon Felix Unger, the Facebook and Instagram Oversight Board member and former European Court of Human Rights vice-president Andras Sajo, David Erdos of Cambridge, and philosophers Alain Badiou, Jean-Luc Nancy, and Srećko Horvat. Alma Mater faculty has participated at the leading universities' events including those of Harvard, Columbia, UCLA, and Yale. Their expert opinion appeared in leading media such as The Guardian, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, and Financial Times.

History
Since the early 2000s, the European Academy of Sciences and Arts has been planning the establishment of the university, occasionally with the subtitle of European University for Leadership.

In 2010, the European Academy officially established the Alma Mater Europaea, with leading Austrian surgeon and European Academy president Felix Unger appointed as the international university's first president, the German political scientist Werner Weidenfeld becoming the first rector, and the Slovenian lawyer, former rector and diplomat Ludvik Toplak the first prorector.

At a meeting in Munich in February 2011, under the patronage of the presidents of 12 European Union member states, the European Academy board determined that numerous courses would be taught at several European universities in different languages, including English, German, and Spanish. In line with the international nature of the university, students, teachers, and prominent European thinkers would meet at an international symposium at the graduation. They also decided that Alma Mater Europaea would be incorporated in European and international networks of universities through cooperation agreements. At the meeting it was decided that in the first stage, Alma Mater Europaea would start three 2-year master's degree programs. The university board stated that Alma Mater Europaea would be based on three so-called "W principles": Wissenschaft, Wirtschaft, Wirken. In German, this means: Science, Economy, Effect.

In 2011, the university opened in Slovenia its first campus in Maribor, Slovenia. This campus enrolled about 500 students in 2011. In July 2011 the university co-sponsored a summer school in St. Gallen, Switzerland. In 2012, about 800 students were enrolled, the campus in Zagreb, Croatia, opened, and the master's degree studies were partially carried out in Brussels. In 2013, the Salzburg campus of Alma Mater Europaea was established and about 1000 students studied in doctoral, masters, and undergrad programs in Austria, Slovenia, and other countries. In 2014, two higher education institutions joined Alma Mater Europaea. One is Institutum Studiorum Humanitatis (ISH), internationally renown graduate school of philosophy, established in 1992, with which Slavoj Žižek and numerous other world's leading philosophers had been affiliated. The other one is the Dance Academy, established in 2008. It is one of the few European institutions issuing government accredited degrees in dance arts. In 2014, studies in Switzerland and Italy started. Ludvik Toplak has served as the president since the university's inception in Slovenia, and Jurij Toplak served as its provost between 2016 and 2022.

In March 2024, Alma Mater Europaea obtained accreditation as a university in Slovenia. It holds an institutional university accreditation, and all of its programs are accredited by the Slovenian Higher Education Agency (Nakvis).

Locations and departments
The university has premises in Salzburg, Ljubljana, Maribor, Capodistria, Murska Sobota and Toscana, Italy. While administration and offices are mainly in Salzburg and Maribor, lecturing takes place mainly in Ljubljana, Capodistria and Murska Sobota. Lecturing in Salzburg and some other European cities started in 2014.


 * Department of Physical Therapy
 * Department of Nursing
 * Department of Social Gerontology
 * Department of Management and European Studies
 * Department of Archival and Documentology Studies

Alma Mater Europaea, campus Vienna
In May 2024, Alma Mater opened its campus in Austria. Under the name Alma Mater Europaea, campus Vienna, shorter Alma Mater Vienna, it started Bachelor studies in Physiotherapy and nursing, and PhD in Artificial Intelligence. It announced campuses in Vienna, Klagenfurt and Salzburg. Dr. Maximilian-Niklas Bonk is the Academic Dean of the Wien campus.

Programmes

 * European leadership program, producing future European thinkers; the studies focus in European leadership, culture, political sciences, law, and human rights.
 * European business studies, producing future European business leaders; This European MBA program would focus on political leadership and strategies, European identity and political culture, transformation and development of Europe, social reforms, sustainable development, globalization.
 * Theological studies, which would be studied at the newly set-up European Dialogue Center for Theological Studies. A network of dialogue between Catholicism, Orthodoxy, and Islam would be formed with a focus on question "What do the others think differently?"

It's About People conference
It's About People is an annual week-long multidisciplinary conference organized by the European Academy of Sciences and Arts and the Alma Mater Europaea university. It regularly hosts leaders of national academies of sciences, university rectors, political leaders including EU commissioners, judges of the European Court of Human Rights and highest national courts, and scholars from prominent universities including Harvard, Yale, Oxford, Cambridge, Columbia.

The president of Slovenia has traditionally bestowed the honorary patronage over the event. The conference was opened by the former president Borut Pahor between 2018 and 2022,  and in 2023, by president Nataša Pirc Musar. The European Commission vice presidents Maroš Šefčovič and Dubravka Šuica and the European Commissioner Mariya Gabriel have addressed the conference. The eleventh conference, held in 2023, featured over 300 presenters from 30 countries in 80 panels.