Secretary-General of The Guild takes critical view of possible inclusion of European Universities funding in ECF

Jan Palmowski, Secretary-General of the Guild of European Research-Intensive Universities, has reacted to discussions in Brussels about funding for the 65 current European University alliances could move from the Erasmus+ programme to the European Competitiveness Fund (ECF). In an article originally published in News Tank Academic, Mr. Palmowski takes a critical view of this possibility and its consequences.

The European Universities alliances have long argued that there should be funding for research as well as pedagogy and mobility, and for funding to strengthen international collaboration between alliances and overseas partners. Integrating alliances into the European Competitiveness Fund might allow direct funding for different endeavours within the alliances.

However, the Secretary-General of The Guild sees potential negative consequences of this scenario, stating amongst others, that it is highly unlikely that the budget of the Competitiveness Fund would stretch to fund research projects as such, but would only be available for capacity-building or seed-funding; if European Universities move into the ECF, that would weaken Erasmus+, a programme that has steadily stayed and grown in importance, regardless of current political priorities. Mr. Palmowski is also worried about the question of ownership, and about the alliances no longer being managed by the Commission's DG EAC, resulting in a loss of advocates and experts of higher education with possible severe consequences on the voice of universities inside the Commission.

Furthermore, Mr. Palmowski claims that the directionality and agility envisaged for the Competitiveness Fund, would provide fundamental challenges to alliances, which need time and dependable financial frameworks to build up and sustain collaboration. In addition, he calls directionality "the antithesis of ‘bottom-up’ collaboration" which the alliances need. Finally, Mr. Palmowski sees moving European University alliances to the ECF as raising important questions for third countries, for example the UK and Switzerland, as it is unclear how open the Commission would be to third countries having access to the ECF, and how open the government of a third country would be to pay into the ECF for alliances.

Mr. Palmowski concludes by pointing out the choice to be made between an Erasmus+ programme as strong as possible in the next MFF, or moving alliances to the ECF, and by clearly stating his view that "for many decades, the Erasmus+ programme has been the most faithful companion of universities, staff and students across all subject domains. We should continue to integrate alliances in this success".

To read the full article on The Guild's website, click here.