SLU's Vice-Chancellor Maria Knutson Wedel welcomes the visitors to the 2025 ELLS Conference, held at SLU in Uppsala. Photo: Jenny Svennås-Gillner / SLU

Euroleague of Life Sciences Universities (ELLS)

Page reviewed:  16/07/2026

The EuroLeague of Life Sciences Universities (ELLS) is an alliance of leading European universities committed to life sciences for sustainability. ELLS aims to transform agri-food systems by collaborations in education, research, and innovation with scientific excellence and societal engagement.

Possibilities for students

ELLS offers a lot of possibilities for students, from semester exchanges to participation in scientific conferences. Read more about each possibility in the links below.

Scientific Student Conference

Semester exchange possibilities

Summer schools

Student challenges and case studies

Joint master programmes

Grants and awards

Student association

Within ELLS there is a student association as well: the EuroLeague Student Association (ELSA). SLU is represented in ELSA by the vice president of SLUSS.

https://www.euroleague-study.org/en/r-20337-alliance/r-20348-student-association/euroleague-student-association-elsa.html

Possibilities for teachers, researchers and other staff

A lot of the activities in ELLS is created and run by the Subject Areas (SA), which are thematic groups of colleagues from the ELLS universities. At the moment, there are 14 SAs, running the joint ELLS programs and developing summer schools and other joint activities.

The ELLS Support Teams (ST) are groups of colleagues dealing with horizontal topics, for instance quality assurance, e-learning, student mobility, etc. The STs organise trainings, share experiences and contribute to smooth collaboration and high quality. For instance, one recurring activity is the course “Navigating Brussels” organised by the ST Research Support Officers, where early-career researchers and PhD-candidates learn key elements of proposal writing and how to use European research programmes for career advancement.

ELLS Institutional Learning Sessions are enabling the exchange of best practices within ELLS through topic-specific webinars.

Every year, in connection to the Scientific Student Conference, the General Assembly and Forum is arranged, where representatives from ST, SA, ELSA and the governing bodies of ELLS meet to disseminate, discuss and develop ELLS further.

Subject Areas

Support Teams

Joint Projects

Institutional Learning

General Assembly and Forum

About ELLS

Since the foundation in 2001, ELLS have become a vibrant professional and educational network, facilitating a range of joint grass-root activities through the internal funding mechanism Funds for Incentives (FFI), as well as through external funding bodies, such as Erasmus+ and Horizon Europe.  

ELLS’ focus on joint teaching and learning, student and staff mobility, result in highly qualified graduates, who are prepared for the demands of the European and international market. Furthermore, through the sharing of expertise and resources, ELLS enhance the national and international position and potential of all partner universities. Within ELLS, SLU students and employees can take part of a range of possibilities and networking opportunities. 

Information connected to ELLS

SLU becomes a European University | slu.se