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Support for European Universities expansion is qualified

Following European ministers’ discussion of the proposal to expand the European Universities Initiative (EUI), Swedish and Norwegian policy-makers, higher education officials and universities have been formulating their own responses.

The ministers discussed plans to invest €120 million (US$130 million) in 24 new university alliances, to add to the 41 existing alliances, with more than 500 universities participating; as well as plans to develop a European degree and strengthen the legal status of the alliances.

Sweden: positive, but devil is in details

Swedish Minister of Education Anna Ekström told Universitetsläraren on 22 March: “We have always had an advanced tradition of Swedish universities collaborating across borders.”

She welcomed the European Commission’s plans of expanding the European Universities scheme with a significant new investment of money.

But she said that only informal discussions had been held on the issue in the Council of Ministers and that the proposal of the European Commission had yet to be endorsed by the member states.

“We are going to monitor these questions closely to see that our national competence is secured,” she said. “It is positive that the EU is now collaborating on strategic initiatives.”

Director General of the Swedish Council for Higher Education Eino Örnfeldt confirmed that Sweden is interested in collaborating on initiatives that improve the quality of higher education.

“We are generally quick to join initiatives that are strengthening international collaboration, which is one of the reasons for the high quality,” he said.

But regarding the proposal of the European Commission to create uniform legal statutes to be established at EU level and to standardise degrees and exams, Örnfeldt said this is hard to achieve.

“This is a sympathetic idea, but very difficult to enforce in practice. Very much is related to details and that 27 countries have to come to agreements.”

Heidi Hansson, deputy vice-chancellor of education at Umeå University, said on the university management blog page on 11 February that the university alliances are there “to explore models for cooperation by testing and discussing obstacles and opportunities identified by the group. And joining forces in Europe for improved quality and joint competitiveness is absolutely the right way to go, in my mind”.

So far, 11 Swedish higher education institutions are participating in European alliances.

Umeå University is in an alliance with nine European universities, called AcrossEU, and the network may also be expanded to further universities along the way.

“It’s exciting, stimulating and sometimes frustrating to cooperate with representatives from such a widespread array of traditions in education,” Hansson said. “It’s challenging to find the common ground without wiping out each other’s individuality.”

The alliance is planning to establish four centres, of which Umeå University intends to form one: the Centre for Future Education and Joint Research.

“For each centre, a joint team contributes with topical issues in sustainability, climate change and digital transformation. A centre means universities become integrated,” Hansson said.

Gustav Ekström, head of international affairs at the Swedish National Union of Students (SFS), told University World News: “The EU provides appreciated and indispensable services. But we are worried about the [lack of] student influence since we have noticed large variations among the alliances, where the further integration of higher education has sometimes highlighted a lack of respect for the importance of student influence.”

He said it is a natural consequence of these services that the EU has gained more influence over higher education. “This isn’t necessarily bad, but we think there is a legitimate worry that the EUI will, for example, create a division between those who are in it, and those who are not.”

Norway: Minister asking universities

After returning from the ministerial meeting in Paris in January where the European Universities Initiative was being discussed ‘informally’, Norwegian Minister of Higher Education and Research Ola Borten Moe told Khrono that he supports the European Commission’s plans for academic collaboration.

However, he said that the questions of a European degree and the legal questions around this issue have to be thought through in more detail and that he would like to consult with the higher education institutions before taking a stand on this.

In January the ministry sent a letter to higher education institutions and other stakeholders asking for their comments on these two questions in particular and in late March the minister received answers from Norwegian universities.

A frequent response was that with more than 60 university alliances and 500 universities participating, there will be a large number of universities not participating in any alliance.

“Will this create an A league and a B league of European universities?” Pro-Rector Kathrine Tveiterås and Division Director Heidi Adolfson at the Arctic University of Norway asked.

“The establishment of university alliances with a separate legal status will in practice say that two parallel systems for research and higher education are established: One for ‘national’ research and education and one that will be for some ‘international’ research and education collaborations,” OsloMet University said in their reply to the ministry.

For universities this would be “very resource demanding”, OsloMet said.

The Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) said that this question had to be sorted out both for the alliances and the involved universities.

“We want the ministry to clarify what this will mean in a Norwegian context, for Norwegian universities,” NTNU wrote. They also said that “it is difficult to see an immediate benefit of a legal status for the alliances”.

The Western Norway University of Applied Sciences said that they want eventual negative consequences of such an arrangement sorted out and that Norway is part of this discussion.

The University of Oslo said that the autonomy of universities had to be secured and at the same time that the alliances had to establish a solid base for binding collaboration, but that the university is “positive to a further investigation of and experimentation of different forms of legal status for the European University alliances”.

The University of Stavanger said that the university alliances will never substitute for the universities’ own strategies, educational programmes or activities, but be “complementary to these and unite ordinary studies and life-long learning”.

Nord University, however, said that a legal status “might lead to greater development potential for the alliances and contribute more to long-term and permanent collaboration and giving better footing for external funding”.

“All-in-all, it looks like the advantages with a legal status look greater than the anticipated disadvantages,” Nord University said.

Professor Sunniva Whittaker, rector of the University of Agder and chair of the board of Universities Norway (made up of accredited universities and university colleges), told University World News that Universities Norway supports Norway’s active participation in the further process of closer cooperation and a closer link between research and education.

At the same time she said Universities Norway would like to see “further studies of both consequences and challenges, for example regarding legal status and the development of a common European degree”.

Universities Norway believes that Norwegian participation in European universities will be able to contribute to a cultural change and to increased mobility. “It is a goal that the students will be able to move seamlessly between the various universities in the alliances, and this could help to increase the exchange to and from Norway.”

At present, there are seven Norwegian institutions participating in European University alliances. Feedback from member institutions of Universities Norway is that such alliances are “a powerful tool that create a great deal of commitment and enthusiasm”.

The alliances facilitate many new types of cooperation that can be seen as a continuation of the Bologna Process and Erasmus+, Universities Norway said.

“The further development of European university alliances must be based on the values and intentions of the various alliance partners. There is a need for a diversity of alliances in the same way that we want a diversity of institutions nationally.

“It is important that this is a voluntary tool that the institutions and alliances can use, and not a mandated solution.”

Researchers fear challenge to autonomy

Norwegian Researchers Association President Guro Elisabeth Lind, in a major article in Khrono on 4 April, urged Borten Moe to drop the question of legal status for university alliances. She says the proposal of a legal status for alliances and a common European degree are challenging “basic values like institutional autonomy and academic freedom”.

“Such a demanding investment in university alliances can lead to harmonisation of the sector and such reduction in institutional diversity will make the sector less able to handle challenges in the future,” she said.

The Confederation of Unions for Professionals (UNIO), with 390,000 members, also wrote that they cannot “support the initiative in the strategy for a common legal status and a common European degree because these two initiatives are challenging central principles in higher education”. The union said there has been too little analysis “so that we can see the full consequences of these measures”.

Lind also said that she is worried about the implications for salary and working conditions for employees at the universities.

She wrote: “There are great differences across European countries and therefore a free float of employees across the universities that are partners in an alliance might become a danger [because some countries have more insecure working conditions for academic staff],” she said, referring to an OECD report on what they characterised as the “research precariat”, meaning lack of job security, including intermittent employment or under-employment.

Professor Bjørn Stensaker, who is vice-rector for education at the University of Oslo and coordinator of the alliance CIRCLE U, one of the seven alliances with Norwegian partners and the only one coordinated from Norway, told University World News that his university, which is the coordinating university in the Circle U alliance, is far more open to testing various legal frameworks as part of the European Universities Initiative.

“In Circle U we established quite early a so-called AISBL – which is a non-profit foundation under Belgian law. This is a rather flexible legal structure that allows the founders to organise joint activities in ways that do not drive bureaucracy.”

He said: “Of course, at the University of Oslo we also care about our institutional autonomy, but we do not see legal structures such as an AISBL as a danger in this respect.

“For us it is important to find effective ways to work together with our partners within Circle U, and legal frameworks are only one part of a greater puzzle to boost our collaboration.”