EUI strategical approach and future sustainability

Since the start of the European Universities Initiative in 2017 many European Universities Alliances have started with EU support during the last years but their initial ideas and forming strategies are significantly diverse among them. We can find university alliances which started with longterm goals and precise strategy to create common environment for the education and research and used funding provided by the EU just as seed funding for kicking off the formation process which will very likely continue regardless of the external funding in the future. The opposite example are alliances that have been initially formed with the idea of getting an externally funded project with no exact goals and longterm strategies for the future continuation of the alliance. These alliances often started with a quite narrow project approach focused rather on deliverables and milestones that had to be submitted than to the final outcomes of building up the alliance. These different strategical approaches raise questions about the outcomes and their sustainability in the future when the external funding vanes. The alliances that have started with the project approach seem to be aware of the risks and obstacles for their future development but at least some of them slightly struggle to find the proper way how to change their approach and reformulate their goals. Sharing of good practices between alliances seems to be crucial for avoiding obstacles and failing of the alliances in the future. The EU should take significant role in this task by providing also other than financial support to the alliances such as consultations, recommendations, methodology and a legislative support (e.g. changes in accreditation process) that are necessary for longterm continuation of the EUI.