Alma Mater Europaea – European Center Maribor is an accredited non-profit research and higher education institution and part of an international university Alma Mater Europaea of the European Academy of Sciences and Arts, which unites over 1500 leading scholars, 31 of which are Nobel Prize laureates. Alma Mater Europaea ECM offers doctoral, masters, and bachelor degree studies in humanities, social gerontology, ecology, business, European studies, project management as well as social studies including healthcare, nursing, physical therapy, and social gerontology. Institutum Studiorum Humanitatis, the oldest Slovenian private higher education institution, joined Alma Mater in 2014. Since 2015, a Dance Academy, the only Slovenian accredited institution offering diplomas ballet and dance studies, is part of the Alma Mater.
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 professor Jacob Rowbottom, German political scientist Werner Weidenfeld, who is also 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, the Constitutional Court judge Klemen Jaklic, who had lectured at Harvard for seven years before joining Alma Mater, and philosophers Alain Badiou, Jean-Luc Nancy, and Srećko Horvat. Alma Mater faculty has participated at the leading universities’ events including those of Harvard, UCLA, and Yale. Their expert opinion appeared in leading media such as The Guardian, The Boston Globe, and Euractiv.
History
Origins and early years
In 2007 European Academy of Sciences and Arts Salzburg (EASA) established Alma Mater Europaea as an academic institution that provides an organizational frame and contents for cultural and professional renewal of the Danube region. AMEU – ECM is part of Alma Mater Europaea as an academic and research institution, a network of over 250 academic teachers and over 40 academic institutions from 12 countries in the Danube region, also connecting 1400 excellent researchers, several Nobel prize recipients.
In 2011, EASA gave an institutional patronage to the European Centre Maribor, including it into the newly established university network Alma Mater Europaea, established particularly for the Danube region. A new project was placed in hands of AMEU – ECM under this patronage; namely organization of the Regional Interactive Educational Network (RIEN).
In 2011 students started studying management and social gerontology. Alma Mater Europaea started offering environmental studies and European studies in 2012 and archival science in 2013.
In March 2013 the first group of 50 students graduated. The president of the European Academy of Sciences and Arts prof. ddr. Felix Unger gave the opening speech. On the same day an Alumni club was established.
Campus
Alma Mater Europaea operates in several different cities in Slovenia. The main office and academic facilities are located in Maribor. The academic programmes also take place in Ljubljana and Murska Sobota.
Some of the academic programmes mostly enroll students from Croatia, Bosnia and Serbia. The lectures, seminars and exams take place in Zagreb, Croatia.
AMEU also has its affiliates in Salzburg, Austria.