On Tuesday 18 January, the European Commission published a wide-ranging strategy, structured around four axes, which aims to support and strengthen cooperation between European higher education institutions in order to enhance the EU’s influence, both in terms of excellence and values, on the international scene.
Some €80 billion will be spent on university education over the next seven years, including the European Year of Youth in 2022, said European Commission Vice-President Margarítis Schinás.
The strategy is indeed part of the Commission’s agenda announced in the Communication on completing the European Education Area by 2025 and follows a consultation of stakeholders in autumn 2021. It aims to support higher education institutions in Europe, to enable them to adapt to new challenges, to develop, and finally to contribute to the European recovery. It also aims to address identified weaknesses, such as insufficient funding of higher education institutions and their need to remain competitive and attractive.
An innovative approach in four points
The novelty of the strategy is that it sees the university at the crossroads of education, research and innovation ecosystems. “This is the first time this has been included in a strategy document for universities”, said Education Commissioner Mariya Gabriel. The emphasis is also on multidisciplinarity.
Through various proposed actions, in cooperation with stakeholders and Member States, the strategy aims to support four objectives.
First of all, the Commission wishes to strengthen the European dimension in the education and research sector. This will include the introduction of the Erasmus+ initiative ‘European Universities’ to support cross-border alliances in higher education. The Commission wants to introduce a legal statute for alliances of higher education institutions and wants to see a common European degree to promote student mobility. Finally, the Commission intends to make the European Student Card more widespread (see other news).
The strategy also seeks to support higher education institutions as “beacons of the European way of life”. These institutions are, for the Commission, bearers of values such as excellence, inclusion, diversity, quality and relevance of knowledge, and academic values. This support would be provided through a number of initiatives, including the introduction of a European framework for diversity and inclusion, the development of Erasmus+ internships and European support for Innovators at School.
In addition, the strategy aims to make universities actors in the digital and green transition. The Commission identifies universities as key players in the green transition and therefore wishes to promote the transmission of knowledge that will enable this transition to be implemented and new models to be proposed. Many actions are proposed: - support for ‘green villages’; - the implementation of the action plans on strategic research and innovation; - support for short training courses on green transition skills leading to microenterprises. In the area of digital transition and in order to promote the learning of digital skills, the Commission will propose, in particular, support for transnational cooperation to develop these skills among students, staff and researchers, but also for specialised or high-tech education programmes.
Finally, the Commission intends to strengthen the international role of universities as a driving force for the EU’s global role, in particular by reinforcing cooperation with international partners and by supporting education in third countries.
Member States are invited to make efforts to support the four proposed objectives, with the EU having only support competences in education.
A governance and monitoring framework for the implementation of the strategy is also proposed. The Commission will publish progress reports. A Higher Education Observatory will be set up. It will produce, among other things, a dashboard for the Higher Education Area.
Universities satisfied
We contacted Anna-Lena Claeys-Kulik, policy coordinator of the European University Association (EUA), who believes, after a first reading, that the strategy is positive. “This gives new energy to cooperation for universities, especially transnational cooperation”, she explained. The EUA welcomes the fact that universities are recognised as having a role to play in the future of the EU, an international role, but also a democratic one.
Many elements are already known to the EUA, which welcomes the proposed instruments, such as the European degree. However, the association still has many questions regarding their implementation and the Member States’ perspective. It also calls for the implementation of previously announced reforms.
To consult the strategy: https://bit.ly/3Kqvmvk (Original version in French by Émilie Vanderhulst)