Commission’s 2022 plan of action puts focus on removing national barriers to institutional collaboration
Removing barriers to collaboration in higher education will be at the centre of Europe’s recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic, the European Commission has said.
In its key ‘work programme’ outlining planned activities for the coming year, the Commission said it wants to “maintain the leading global status of European universities while boosting their cooperative work”.
The programme contains 42 new initiatives aligned with ambitions set out by its president Ursula von der Leyen in her recent State of the Union Address (see: Commission makes science central to strategy for 2022).
Two of these initiatives fall under the Commission’s “education package”, including a non-legislative European strategy for universities, and a programme specifically focusing on “building bridges for effective European higher education cooperation”. A need for digital skills training across all levels of the education sector was also emphasised in the paper, which was published on 19 October.
On its European universities strategy, the Commission promises to present “ways for deeper and sustainable transnational cooperation in higher education”, suggesting a reduction of administrative barriers to working across countries.
Research advocates have previously expressed concern that the suggested strategy may have little impact on major barriers to cross-border cooperation between institutions. And exactly how the Commission plans to deliver on its aims is still opaque to many in the sector though.
“The Commission is looking for a role it can take with universities in Europe,” said Kurt Deketelaere, president of the League of European Research Universities.
Deketelaere said the Commission could usefully act to eliminate national obstacles to cross-border collaboration, but it seems to be shying away from such a task.
“The Commission, or the member states, still think they can realise a European Research and Education area without top-down legal initiatives and that all can be realised through voluntary bottom up action. Quod non,” he said.
“If they want the [strategy] to be more than another document that will be put on the shelf after publication, it must have teeth, and that means that member states in the first place must be obliged to eliminate obstacles which prevent this cooperation between universities,” he said.
A version of this article also appeared in Research Europe