The central argument of this paper is about how and why higher education is an interesting case to study through the lens of comparative regionalism. We will make a critical overview on the emergent debate on comparative regionalism in EU studies. We will identify what has led to the need to open perspectives and engage in this new research direction. We will then explain what can be the contributions of comparative regionalism, as well as what can be the difficulties in operationalising such an approach and how to deal with them. This project seeks to engage with studies of comparative regionalism, which has, up to know, remained primarily a promising theoretical claim for EU scholars, with very little systematic empirical work having been conducted.
