The European Commission makes a first assessment of the research and innovation activities of European University Alliances: satisfactory but challenges remain.
An initiative to modernise Europe’s higher education sector first launched in 2017 is gaining momentum and visibility. The overarching objective of the so-called European Universities Initiative (EUI) involves “strengthening strategic partnerships across the EU between higher education institutions (HEIs) and encouraging the emergence by 2024 of sixty ‘European Universities’, consisting in bottom-up networks of universities across the EU”. The initiative is a key pillar of the European Education Area (EEA). In a latest step assessing the development of the initiative, now the European Commission (EC) has published a report looking at the intermediate progress on research and innovation activities in the 17 of the currently running European University Alliances funded under Horizon 2020.
The EUI seeks to strengthen these strategic partnerships between European HEIs, firstly in education, funded through the Erasmus+ programme, but also in research and innovation as funded through a dedicated call under Horizon 2020. The aim is to establish long-term transnational alliances between HEIs, and so facilitate a structural and strategic exchange assuring sustainable cooperation and to link the European Research Area (ERA) with the EEA. So far, overall 44 European University Alliances have been selected under the Erasmus+ calls for proposal in 2019, 2020 and 2022. This analysis follows last month’s study (see SwissCore article) of the effectiveness and supporting impact of national funding systems on the EUI.
The Horizon 2020 funding focused on research and innovation complements the ERASMUS+ funding received for primarily educational activities, and serves to link the European Research Area (ERA) and European Education Area (EEA) by supporting the modernisation of universities across the knowledge triangle of education, research and innovation. The key objective of the Horizon 2020 call was to utilise the ‘European Universities’ as a testbed for exploring support for institutional transformation in their research and innovation dimension and implement seamless and effective content synergies between Erasmus+ and Horizon Europe.
The report looks at how the alliances have managed the cooperation, and identifies good practices as well as tangible progress made in implementing transformational changes. It proposes recommendations for the relevant transformation modules, whose focus span from developing a common research and innovation agenda, engaging outside societal actors, and strengthening open science practices to exploring joint university structures. The report makes notable proposals on the management of the initiative, encouraging a better coordination at the European Commission regarding funding streams. It also underlines structural failings in how the alliance activities are managed and how they prioritise their activities.
The report notes how adding research and innovation activities to the already existing education activities required that the alliance partners “re-introduce” themselves to each other, having to go through new basic knowledge building block exercises to better understand their respective resources and competences. Furthermore, the study emphasises that this knowledge building, as well as the speed of decision-making on alliance actions, could be improved. In particular institutions should appoint from the outset dedicated staff members, with a full overview of their research capacities and with the authority to make resource allocation decisions on implementation of the activities. More generally, more research managers and leaders should be involved from the outset.
The report highlights one particular shortcoming regarding the specific transformation module concerning the engagement of outside actors. HEIs need to ensure that they are well embedded in their own regional research and innovation ecosystems. However, the authors note with surprise that alliances fail to make reference to being involved or engaged with other regional non-academic actors in research and innovation activities related to the relevant regional smart specialisation strategies.
At the level of the governance of the initiative, the report highlights also how national authorities and the European Commission can facilitate and support the alliances in developing their strategic partnerships. National and regional authorities can help the institutions resolve the difficulties which arise in pursuit of transnational cooperation. Barriers to closer cooperation across borders include the disparity in institutional organisational models and strategies, national cultures, as well as societal, political and legal environments. The authors also make a specific proposal to establish a joint funding roadmap under Horizon Europe in synergy with Erasmus+, which should be specifically focused on the alliances. The current project-based approach with no visibility beyond the medium-term, makes it difficult to ensure the required level of commitment and long-term engagement from the various actors within the participating institutions. Longer-term funding commitments would alleviate these issues.
The findings and evidence presented in this report constitute a contribution to the study “Towards a European Excellence Initiative” assessing Horizon 2020 support to the EUI, due to be published in the Summer of 2023.