Welcome to the homepage of the European Retail Academy (ERA) - we hope that in the future you'll visit us frequently on the Internet!

We are an academic network, created in the first place to generate a B2B-dialogue amongst universities/colleges of applied science, but also to help those in the retail industry who might be looking for addresses of institutions in selected countries.

Our vision is to improve our own skills by internal as well as external dialogue and to operate in the end of this decade on a real multilateral and multicultural level, supported by exchanges of students and lecturers, joint PhD theses or even commercial projects.

In Europe we adhere to the so-called 'Bologna Process', in which students are free to switch universities from one country to another without compromising their study content and certification. Within that common framework, however, the members of our group maintain a distinctive 'local flavour'. In addition, ERA is perfectly willing to build academic bridges from continent to continent, as retail is globalising, both as far as the technology and the organisation of trade fairs are concerned. Leaders in retail therefore need to become cosmopolitans.

Founded on February 17 th 2005 by 10 institutions from 6 countries the European Retail Academy Foerderverein e.V. (ERA) was registered at the "Amtsgericht" (Court) Cologne under the number 14964. Its headquarter started at the EHI Retail Institute in Cologne /Germany and was transformed to Roesrath Germany at September 2012.

Over the years the number of members increased dramatically and by 2015 jumped across the 200 members status ! But within the time from 2005 onwards there was also an evolution of the scope of ERA covered by additional specials as sub-sites of the main domain www.european-retail-academy.org ( see also at Mission ) .