European Commission Vice-President Schinas: “The European Degree will find its place next to Schengen, Erasmus+, the Euro.”
The European Commission’s (EC) main priority for higher education policy is the establishment of a European Degree. Mainly for that purpose, the EC published a higher education policy package on 27 March 2024. The package includes three interlinked elements: i. a Commission Communication on a blueprint towards a European degree, ii. a proposal for a Council recommendation on a European Quality Assurance and Recognition System, and iii. a proposal for a Council recommendation on attractive and sustainable careers in higher education. This is the last set of EC policy initiatives before the European elections in June and the constitution of the new Commission in the autumn.
The focus of the package is set on the European Degree Communication. It is based on the 2022 European Strategy for Universities, which included the European Degree label already as one of the key instruments (see SwissCore article), and on the subsequent Council Recommendation on building bridges for effective European higher education cooperation. The blueprint is also based on the outcomes of the six pilot projects that were testing over the past year how a European Degree (label) could work. The results are included in the accompanying staff working document. The Commission wants to introduce a European Degree to increase the employability of students, to increase the transparency and visibility of higher education in the EU, and to boost strategic cooperation and global competitiveness of universities. The challenge lies in the fact that the EU does not have competence in education matters. Therefore, the European Degree would be delivered at national or institutional level and on a voluntary basis. The main benefit, as presented by the EC, is to use the momentum of the European Degree to simplify and reduce administrative burden for the establishment of joint degree programmes, as they could be based on a common set of European criteria (annexe 2 on page 143-145 of the staff working document)
In a first step the EC now proposes two tracks towards a European Degree for BA, MA or PhD programmes: The first track is a European Degree that would be jointly awarded by several universities from different countries, which would be included in the national qualification frameworks (NQF). Similarly, it could also be awarded by European University alliances that have a legal status. The second and less ambitious track is the award of a European Degree label supplement for programmes that are meeting the European criteria. In this process, Member States and higher education institutions (HEIs) can move forward at their own pace.
The pathway towards the European degree will be accompanied by a new European Degree policy lab composed of experts from HEIs and the EC to develop guidelines to implement European Degrees and an annual European Degree Forum to monitor progress (first to be held in 2025). There are also discussions ongoing on providing (financial) support for the implementation of European Degrees via Erasmus+, for example through European Degree Design Measures (similar to the existing Erasmus Mundus Design Measures) or through European Degree Pathway Projects.
The Council Recommendation on a European Quality Assurance and Recognition System complements and supports the pathway towards a European Degree. The rationale for this proposal is to continue to foster trust between HEIs to improve recognition and to move further towards institution-level quality assurance. The EC states that the uneven implementation of the European Approach to Quality Assurance of Joint Programmes hampers the development of joint programmes and that therefore quality assurance systems need to be strengthened. This becomes particularly acute as more and more European University alliances develop joint programmes, which can be highly challenging.
The policy proposal on attractive and sustainable careers in higher education has the goal to improve the working conditions in academia and to contribute to a cultural change at HEIs. The EC wants to “promote, recognise and valorise” i. mobility and transnational cooperation, ii. diversity of academic roles including innovative teaching methods, and iii. attractive working conditions. The ambition is to ultimately attract and retain the best academics and higher education staff.
The two draft Council Recommendations will now be discussed by the Member States, and the European Degree Communication will likely be followed by Council Conclusions of the education ministers at the end of this year. In a first reaction, the European University Association (EUA) welcomes the package and stresses that the successful introduction of a European Degree depends on the full implementation of existing European tools for quality assurance and recognition related to joint programmes. Secondly, EUA highlights the importance of moving forward on these issues in the entire European Higher Education Area (EHEA), which also includes Switzerland.