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From the Standing Group on Knowledge Politics and Policies.
Universities not only produce Europe’s intellectual elites and scientific knowledge, but they are also key actors in science diplomacy, regional innovation ecosystems and cultural reproduction. The European Union (EU) is increasingly recognizing this and engages in the steering of European universities, for example through its funding programmes. The most recent EU endeavor in this regard is the European Universities Initiative (EUI) which consists of strong incentives for top European universities to merge into transnational networks of universities. This mission has been espoused by 64 university alliances so far, comprising of more than 560 higher education institutions and covering 54% of all PhD students in Europe. The size and intensity of this collaboration throws a new light at the big questions of the relationship between Europe and its universities.
The pre-conference workshop at the biannual meeting of the Standing Group on European Union of the European Consortium for Political Research (ECPR) that took place in Lisbon in June aimed to address these big questions and provide some of the answers based on the research pursued by early careers researchers (ECRs) sharing a common interest in the phenomenon of European University Alliances. The workshop addressed the two-way processes binding the European Union and its universities: the effects of EU policies on European universities’ research output, teaching practices and service to society, and vice versa, the effect that the higher education sector with its scientific and intellectual output, skills and knowledge formation has on Europe of today. The workshop gathered twelve ECRs presenting their papers and four senior academics who acted as discussants (Daniela Craciun, Lukas Graf, Marina Cino Pagliarello and Marcelo Marquez). Below are some of the key findings from the emerging research from ECRs active in the fields of European studies, political science, public policy and organisational studies applied to the case of European University Alliances.
It is not a given that the European Universities Initiative (EUI) has gained traction among top-performing universities across Europe. Applying Kingdon’s (1984, 2010) Multiple Streams Theory, Courtney Hartzell (Ghent University) and Daniela Craciun (University of Twente) found in their study that the European Commission acted as a policy entrepreneur. The Commission succesfully pushed the idea of a „European university“ through the policy cycle in the moment when overlapping windows of opportunity opened in the politics and problem streams in 2017 with Brexit and French President’s Emmanuel Macron speech at the Sorbonne University.
The policy stream that engendered the EUI is subject of Antonin Charret’s (University of Oxford) joint study with Alis Oancea and Maia Chankseliani. They offer a novel analytical tool, plastique palimpsestes, to explore how entangled national institutional contexts, historical perspectives, and higher education policy priorities have shaped the policy development of the EUI. In the crafting of a new European higher education policy, past developments such as for example the Erasmus+ programme and the Bologna Process have not been replaced, but continue to have a major influence.
The complex interplay of policies at European and national level affecting universities was also the topic of Marcelo Marquez’ paper (University of Luxembourg) who argues that the EUI is driving policy integration between European higher education and research policy sectors that have in the past evolved in rather disarticulated ways. Analysing 75 relevant EU policy documents mentioning the EUI between 2018 and 2024, the author finds a wide distribution of authorship among different policy sectors and cross-sectoral topic distribution indicating a level of policy integration unseen before between the sectors of education and research policy at EU level.
Related to the European Research Area, in her paper co-authored with Lise Moawad, Cornelia Schendzielorz (Humboldt University Berlin) addresses the issue of universities’ membership in multiple alliances. The authors uncover the role of local university alliances in the European Research Area by analyzing the relationship between local and European university alliances. The analysis uncovers similarities and differences regarding science policy aims, the degree of alliance integration and the position of the alliances in the spectrum between excellence and cohesion.
The fact that the EUI ought to transform European higher education institutions into universities of the future has fueled scholarly interest in diverse organizational aspects of alliance cooperation. The contribution by Albert Nijboer (Catholic University Milan) asks if we are observing elements of pervasive change in those institutions that are involved in the EUI and how the involved institutional stakeholders (university leaders, academics, administrators and students) perceive this change. Nijboer maps the formal relations between institutional representatives and conducts social network analysis based on survey and interview data.
The role of networks established through the EUI also relates to Carlos Cuevas’ (Technical University of Munich) study on the fostering of responsible research and innovation (RRI) through co-creation and university alliances. Cuevas explores how European University Alliances, RRI and co-creation intertwine. He finds that when building on the EUI alliances to foster RRI and co-creation not only fragmentation needs to be anticipated, but also nuances between diverse notions of co-creation, which means to identify what falls between the cracks of different projects and their components.
Connected to the issue of network strategies, Francesco Girotti (Catholic University Milan) investigates the effect of EUI participation on universities’ internationalization practices. His quantitative survey of 354 universities participating in the EUI uncovers how the EUI is embedded into the institutional (infra)structures of the participating universities and, the extent to which the EUI fosters the development of new internationalization practice including governance structures.
When assessing the novelty of cooperation structures and practices resulting from the EUI the perspective of those who are responsible for the initiative’s implementation is indispensable. In her work, Agata Mannino (Catholic University Milan) focuses on university middle managers who are key for broadening internal stakeholder involvement in the participating institutions. Through sensemaking theory, she uncovers the challenges of aligning expectations, motivations, and goals within universities, between alliance members, and with external stakeholders.
The impact of university alliances ultimately depends on the buy in of academic staff in strategic alliances, an issue which was demonstrated by Hana Fehrenbach’s (University of Freiburg) study. Drawing on intrinsic ambiguity from organization theory, the study offers insights into the inward and outward organizational processes and structures underlying the pursuit of transnational strategic alliances in complex environments. The findings highlight the crucial role of organizing in navigating these ambiguities.
Yet another important group of alliance stakeholders are university leaders, who are at the center of Katalin Szondy’s (St. Pölten University of Applied Sciences) contribution. Being part of an alliance should encourage executives, like higher education institution presidents, to embrace transformative processes towards international collaboration in a European University Alliance (EUA). Szondy identifies the most effective leadership styles among executive leaders of universities of applied sciences within EUAs with a particular focus on the fostering of staff readiness.
One core issue beyond alliance cooperation is integration and the question whether EUAs cause a convergence of national higher education policies. Nadia Manzoni (Central European University) zooms into the European degree policy with ongoing discussions among EU Member States in the Council of the European Union. She analyses how EUAs have become an important driver pushing for regulatory frameworks to be relaxed or aligned in order to meet the goals set to them by the EU-level policy and by the funding instruments.
The question if EU policy initiatives consolidate the supranational policy layer underlies Alina Felder’s (University of St. Gallen) work. Combining policy feedback thinking with relational Europeanization approaches, Felder finds that universities do not only make use of EU funding to expand their capacities for cooperation, but that their continued use of EU funding also lets them act as shapers of the very opportunity structures they benefit from. This applies to both university networks in border regions and to those most recently funded by the EUI.
Finally, many of the workshop contributors are presently involved in the preparation of an edited volume on the 5th anniversary of the European Universities Initiative, to be published with Springer Nature in the Higher Education Dynamics Series. The book, aimed at both scholars and practitioners and policy makers, will provide a comprehensive overview of the main themes and debates surrounding European University Alliances from an interdisciplinary perspective and equally, provide directions for future research in the area. Academic research on the topic as well as critical self-reflection by those involved in this initiative strengthens the foundations of the house of European higher education that the EU is co-building with universities.
This post was initially published on Europe of Knowledge blog platform.