Campus of European Universities: a first assessment to kickstart new steps

Five years after the speech that French president Emmanuel Macron gave at La Sorbonne, and three years after the launch of the European Universities initiative by the European Commission, the Campus of European Universities was announced during the presentation of the French Presidency of the European Union as early as December 2021. In his speech, French president Macron had indeed called the organisation of a major meeting of European Universities in June 2022. And the deed is done through this Campus, a major event designed to make a first an initial assessment of their achievements and the new work undertaken to strengthen them.

Improving the European aspect

In addition to the presidents of European universities, organisers of the event say that the Campus also brought together representatives of the Member States and the European Commission, as well as partners from the social and economic spheres (businesses, regions, cities, research organisations, etc.), both in and outside the EU, with the particular goal of “strengthening the international dimension of the European Universities initiative”.

Deepening the sense of European belonging, supporting European universities in their action to transmit the European way of life and removing obstacles to transnational cooperation between institutions in Europe, was one of the aims of the Campus, developed by the French Minister for Higher Education, who designed this event “as a campus open to European and global players in the sector”, an openness necessary to fuel the next steps and to allow the alliances to put forward their achievements and ambitions. Building a “European strategy for strengthening higher education institutions for the future of Europe” thus responds to the Council Recommendation “building bridges for effective European cooperation in higher education”.

Implementing ambitious new measures

Through numerous round tables and thematic workshops, as well as the organisation of an Village of Alliances where each of the 41 European universities was represented, the Campus had the concrete objective of promoting European university alliances and transnational cooperation in higher education, research and innovation.

In its Recommendation, adopted under the French Presidency of the European Union, the Council called for ambitious measures to strengthen alliances such as the European Universities. Possible new steps and advances that were discussed during the Campus include:

• the trial of a European label for joint programmes which, as of 2022, would allow for “the recognition of the added value of study programmes involving multiple European establishments, thus paving the way for a future European degree”;
• the exploration of legal means to enhance “their institutional cooperation, allowing them to jointly recruit, for example”;
• a recommendation for more sustainable and integrated funding for European Universities, seeking “to promote synergies between the various European sources and national funds”. 

According to the French Minister for Higher Education, this is a good opportunity to “reflect on the challenges that the alliances still have to meet in order to build this European network for the creation and sharing of knowledge at the service of students and society as a whole”.