EU-supported cross-border collaborations say their funding must be holistic and sustainable
The alliances formed through the EU’s scheme for financing cross-border university collaboration have reiterated their call for long-term support, as the bloc develops a new funding scheme for them.
Fifty alliances involving 430 higher education institutions are currently supported by the European Universities Initiative, which provides funding for collaborative projects including joint campuses and courses.
Following concerns from alliances about the funding they receive, the European Commission is now developing an “investment pathway” for the EUI that would combine EU, national and regional funding, and improve synergies between different EU sources.
But in a joint statement on 29 September, all of the 41 alliances that had been funded as of March 2022 reiterated a sentiment that they expressed then, that their funding should have a “clear vision for a long-term and holistic financial sustainable future”.
Go beyond projects
According to the alliances, sustainable funding is needed to “enable the EUI to go beyond a short-term project approach and deliver on [the] long-term, innovative and ambitious vision of future-proof European universities”.
In its own statement, the European Consortium of Innovative Universities alliance said the investment pathway should consider all of the functions and structures involved in creating an EUI alliance, including infrastructures, management structures, and governing and advisory bodies.
The ECIU said that project-based funding “come[s] with uncertainties, as one needs to follow the apply-evaluate-execute-report routine”. This distracts the alliances from building on their long-term ambition, it said.
Top up Erasmus+
The ECIU also underscored comments that the head of its Brussels office, Olga Wessels, told Research Professional News this month. She flagged that the EU’s funding for the alliances from its Erasmus+ academic mobility programme has a longer duration than that from its Horizon Europe research and innovation programme, comparatively undermining the research element.
The alliance suggested a top-up model in which various EU programmes, including Horizon Europe, could reinforce Erasmus+ specifically for supporting the alliances.
All of the alliances nevertheless welcomed the Commission’s broad plans and said they were open to discussing them. They urged the EU member states to “strongly engage” with the investment pathway, saying that a coherent approach was “necessary to truly deliver on the ambition” of the EUI.