Allies in the combat against climate change? The role of climate change for university alliances

While the formation of higher education institution (HEI) alliances is usually driven by purposes of internationalization, the European Union has recently turned to the formation of HEI alliances as problem solving tools for societal challenges. Multiple levels, actors and issues shape the formation and missions of HEI alliances whose sources of funding pursue political agendas. This contribution asks how HEI alliances are affected by the political agendas at (sub)national and supranational level that foresee a contribution by HEIs to tackle climate change. This paper compares the role of climate change mitigation for missions and cooperation results of HEI alliances. The focus lies on HEI alliances that have been established due to the European Universities Initiative co-funded by the EU. The qualitative comparative analysis is based on documents and interviews conducted with representatives from the alliances and draws on HE regionalization and Europeanization theories to interpret the gathered data. In terms of the formation and mission of alliances, the paper finds that issues of climate change and sustainability feature in collaborative endeavors not only because of the profiles of the involved HEIs but also because of societal demands and funding stipulations. Regarding cooperation results, the analysis finds that HEI alliances are primarily successful in incorporating climate change mitigation in delivering short-term joint teaching formats and in bringing researchers with shared agendas and interests together. Moreover, HEI alliances serve to exchange practices to make campuses and university life more sustainable such as concerning student mobility. Since HEI alliance formation usually builds on pre-existing ties among HEIs and the newly established European University alliances often rely on pre-existing alliances, these findings may be transferred to other cases of HEI alliances.