Brussels, 18/10/2010 (Agence Europe) - In close collaboration with the European Commission, the Belgian Presidency organised a conference on 14 and 15 October on the role of universities and research organisations in the European area of research, chaired by Benoît Cerexhe, the economics, employment, scientific research and foreign trade minister for the Region of Brussels-Capital, Hungarian minister Zoltan Cséfalvay and Anneli Pauli, the deputy director general at DG Research at the European Commission.
Under the EU 2020 strategy, particularly the EU 2020 communication of 6 October 2010 entitled “A Europe of Innovation”, the Commission has made modernisation one of its ten priorities. Excellence is put at the heart of the measure. The Belgian Presidency explains: “This measure is based on the three pillars of the knowledge triangle - research, innovation and education. Indeed, qualitative higher education, which pursues excellence, is at the root of research activities resulting in innovation. The profound link which connects research and training in universities provides them with a unique and essential role to play in the knowledge society. Given the importance of the three pillars of the 'knowledge triangle' and to remember the necessity of fine-tuning these three parts, the Belgian Presidency… has organised this conference on the role of universities and research centres in the European Research Area.” Discussions at the conference examined the connection between academic and the business world, university autonomy, the structuring of 'doctoral schools' and conditions to achieve excellence in European universities and other research areas. The Presidency explains: “In terms of governance, excellence goes hand-in-hand with the freedom of decision in a large spectrum of domains, of which financial autonomy in relation to public and private providers of funds is one. In this regard, a number of participants plead for university public funding to be more based on performance as well as on competition put in place between institutions. This, of course, should not be at the expense of the essential mission of training and education.... The participants in the conference consider that reinforced autonomy, together with a professionalisation of their management, should enable universities to choose a more outspoken profile... A more profound specialisation and differentiation of the different European universities would also make it possible to put in place strategic alliances with other academic and industrial partners, in such a way as to make use of the strong points and complementarily beaten them”. Current classifications only take account of partial indicators that focus on research intensity although most universities have multiple roles and areas of work. In order to deal with this, the EU U-Multirank initiative has come up with a type of classification for each type of higher education establishment to highlight the existence of other forms of excellence alongside research alone. A pilot study will be launched in this connection shortly. (I.L./transl.fl)