Spain sets up ‘European universities’ group

The Spanish government has formed a working group to facilitate the participation of the country’s universities in the EU’s initiative to support cross-border university networks.

The group is one of three that Spain’s minister of science, innovation and universities Pedro Duque has set up to work on his ministry’s “most imminent challenges”, the government announced on 17 September. It will seek to “empower the internationalisation of universities”, the government said.

Setting up networks of European universities was first proposed by France’s president Emmanuel Macron, and has since been backed by EU member state governments as a way of increasing student mobility and universities’ international competitiveness.