27 Jan 2025
European Commission publishes report on outcomes and transformative potential of the European Universities initiative
The European Commission's DG EAC published a report 'European Universities Initiative - outcomes and transformational potential' on 24 January 2025. The report presents the strengths, achievements and progress of the alliances since the inception of the initiative in 2019. It presents the initiative's potential, lays out aspects to be addressed, and provides future policy direction and avenues to continue making the European Universities initiative a success in the long-term.
The report covers 5 core dimensions of the alliances:
- transnational institutional cooperation and shared governance
- joint education provision and mobility
- cooperation with society and economy
- research and innovation dimension of the alliances
- outcomes for the wider higher education system.
Key findings of the report include, amongst others:
- the alliances deep long-term structural and strategic and sustainable cooperation between the higher education institutions, directly involving students in the alliances’ governance, has been a game changer in the higher education landscape;
- the alliances strengthened the cooperation between students, academia, business and society, strongly anchoring their activities in their local and regional ecosystems through an extensive network of over 2,200 associated partners;
- the alliances reinforced commitment towards European values, including academic values and democracy
- the alliances accelerated national and European policy developments and reforms, notably in relation to facilitating transnational cooperation and setting up joint programmes, including the work towards a European Degree;
- looking into the future, further efforts are needed to up-scale the alliances' outreach and activities to match their full capabilities in terms of reaching out to much more students, staff and faculties, develop across all missions of education, research and innovation at the service of society, and further deepen connections in the alliances’ trailblazer role with the national higher education systems;
- concerted efforts at European and national levels are still needed to up-scale the initiative’s outreach and activities .
The report builds on data sources including
- the piloting exercise of a monitoring framework for the European Universities initiative, co-developed with the alliances, higher education stakeholders and EU countries
- studies from academics and position papers from EU higher education stakeholders
- national studies assessing the impact of the initiative at national/regional level.
The Commission states that the report will be a source of inspiration for the development of the European Universities initiative under the next EU multi-annual financial framework.
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