EUA elects president who warns of global pressures

Former head of University College Cork in Ireland, Michael Murphy, has been elected president of the European University Association in a landslide victory.

Murphy was elected by 296 votes to 66 at the EUA’s general assembly, held at Sorbonne University in Paris on 11 April. He defeated Martine Rahier, a biology professor at the University of Neuchâtel, Switzerland, who was later reelected as a member of the EUA’s eight-person board.

In a short speech before the vote, Murphy said Europe could not compete with China and the United States without a “strong, integrated university system”. Instead of focusing all resources on a few centres of excellence like many of its rivals, Europe will have “maybe 100” networks of institutions by the end of the century, demanding new governance and funding models.