The leaders of 50 supported alliances, representatives of member states, the European Commission, but also “traditional” university networks (EUA, Coimbra Group, etc.) and student organizations met in Barcelona in September at the second European Universities Forum. Its main goal was to connect the actors involved in the European Universities initiative and provide them with a space for discussion on important topics, achievements, common challenges and the future of alliances.
The two-day packed program consisted of two panel discussions and eight thematic blocks. The first panel focused on the transformative potential of alliances and challenges at the level of member states, including the necessary reforms of national legislations that would significantly facilitate international cooperation. The guests of the second panel discussed the societal reach of the initiative and how to bring the alliance closer to European society. The issue of communication was addressed – in which ways and with which tools to make alliances better known to the public, but also cooperation with local/regional entities (50 alliances now cooperate with a total of almost 1,700 different partners), the importance of universities’ involvement in local ecosystems and consideration of needs (diverse) companies.
FORUMS/ THEMATIC NETWORKS
II EUI Forum 2023 Projects piloting the European Diploma brand and the legal status of alliances were presented . The thematic blocks were devoted to different topics, you can read about them briefly in the points below, and in more detail on the website of the Forum, where you can also look at the recording.
Videos and photos – forumeuropeanuniversitiesalliances2023.com
European Diploma Mark | The panel discussed representatives of all 6 projects that were selected and supported under the Erasmus+ call to test this concept. A total of 21 alliances, 17 ministries and 22 accreditation authorities are involved in the projects, and one of the main outputs should be recommendations regarding a possible European diploma. The projects last 12 months and are currently approaching half-time, so the panelists shared their experience so far with testing different possible criteria, with assessing how existing joint programs correspond to the proposed criteria, and with the process of creating the brand and certificate itself. They also devoted themselves to analyzing the added value of the European Diploma (from the point of view of students and various stakeholders) and reflected on the applicability of the diploma to various disciplines or regulated professions, practical matters regarding the awarding of diplomas, etc.
Legal status of alliances | The panel discussed representatives of all 4 projects that were selected and supported under the Erasmus+ call to test this tool. Views on the need, disadvantages/advantages and the concept of legal status differ across the alliances, also the 4 pilot projects approached the topic differently. The listeners thus had the opportunity to look at the issue from several perspectives. The panelists shared their experiences with the implementation of different types of legal statuses as well as the obstacles they encountered along the way and discussed how to solve them in the future.
II EUI Forum 2023 A monitoring framework and the future of alliances Alliance Monitoring Framework |
During the summer, the Commission published a preliminary version of the monitoring framework, which aims to assess the progress and transformative potential of the alliances and thus provide the necessary data for the preparation of the next programming and funding period. The panelists emphasized the need for flexibility (taking into account the diversity of alliances), a long-term and comprehensive approach (taking into account all university missions and synergies between them). At the same time, they recommended avoiding an excessive burden on alliances when collecting data (for this purpose, for example, already established continuous monitoring reports, surveys and others can be used).
Financial sustainability of alliances | The European Commission, together with EU member states and other stakeholders, is preparing a financial framework (the so-called “Investment pathway”) for European universities for the next financial period. It is based on a more complex approach. In the spirit of connecting educational activities with other missions of the alliance, they try to find synergies between various financial instruments – especially between the Erasmus+ and Horizon Europe programs, European structural funds and other resources at the national or regional level. The panelists discussed the possible direction of the new framework and reminded that its design is not easy, also due to the complexity of higher education systems in the EU (the funding system of universities differs across countries) and the different approach to the initiative (the support of universities involved in alliances is also different in each country). .
Global cooperation and openness of alliances Cooperation of alliances with third countries | Within this block, various models of internationalization that appear among alliances were presented. Some alliances have established a strategy from the beginning