From Classroom to Policy: Students Deliver Winning Solutions for Europe’s Biggest Challenges
The fifth edition of the CIVICA Multicampus course “The Future of Europe” generated a lively exchange of ideas among students and faculty from across the alliance, addressing some of Europe’s most urgent challenges. This engaging dialogue culminated in three winning student projects presenting concrete policy proposals.
A flagship initiative of CIVICA, the course, coordinated by professor Carlo Altomonte of Bocconi University, is co-designed and co-taught by professors from alliance member institutions. Delivered simultaneously across CIVICA campuses in the Fall 2025 semester, it combined live online lectures with local activities. Master’s students from member universities explored EU policymaking in four critical areas: globalisation, democracy, environment, and digital transformation.
As part of their final evaluation for the course, as a capstone experience, students worked in teams - each group spanning at least three campuses - to develop policy proposals addressing real-world challenges facing the EU. Guided by faculty supervisors, teams crafted detailed solutions, applying their knowledge to pressing policy issues.
At the beginning of May, the three best policy brief projects were awarded a monetary prize funded by the Fondazione Achille and Giulia Boroli, which funds a Chair in European Studies at Bocconi University. The ceremony was held during the annual Bocconi-Boroli Lecture in Milan.
“Our aim was to find ways to contrast populism in the EU and specifically to find approaches to protect young EU voters, for example against polarization on social media,” comments Leonie Ballauf, student at Sciences Po and part of the Governing the Mood Machine: A Dual Strategy to Empower and Protect Young EU Voters in the Platform Era winning project. “It was an interesting experience, getting different views from different countries. It has further inspired me to work in the international field.”
“We looked into the intricacy of balancing sustainability and competitiveness with Europe’s Clean Industrial Deal and in particular how corporate car fleets can contribute to this,” says Lukas Prommersberger, Bocconi student and member of the winning team with the Fleet Power: How Corporate Vehicles Can Drive Europe’s Clean Industrial Deal project. “There was a great group spirit in our team and it was very fruitful to tackle an EU issue with different perspectives and backgrounds. Such an approach is essential for the EU’s future.”
“Our project focused on a critical issue major in Europe - how the EU can regulate AI in a way that protects citizens’ rights and safety while still remaining competitive in this fast-moving landscape,” says Cassandra Astenius, student at Stockholm School of Economics and part of the Rewiring the EU’s AI Future: From Linear Regulation to Dynamic Ecosystem team. “This multicampus experience was really valuable because it gave me the opportunity to work in such an international and interdisciplinary setting and pushed me to look at questions from a broader policy perspective, while working on a very relevant real-world issue.”