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The rise of international university alliances, such as those within the European University Initiative, suggests that the supranational dimension of university collaboration is now self-evident, at least in Europe. Yet this trend is unfolding alongside the emergence of local university alliances. The following paper addresses two cases based in European capital cities: Berlin University Alliance (BUA) and Paris Sciences et Lettres (PSL). We analyse them as objects of local, national, and European knowledge policy strategies. Which roles and functions do local university alliances have in and for the cities they are located in, and how, in return, do capital cities leverage these alliances to position themselves as ‘knowledge metropolises’? The article addresses this issue from the viewpoint of the historical and discursive geography of science. Relying on desk-based document analysis and ethnographic fieldwork, our multi-scale analysis reveals that the institutionalisation of BUA and PSL involves the mobilisation of elements from local, national, and international ideological repertoires, including capital city narratives, the race for excellence, national and linguistic identities, and competitiveness through globalisation. We make known the complex integration of these two university alliances in tangled scales that contribute to the establishment of Paris and Berlin as ‘knowledge metropolises’.