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2024 was a pivotal year for the future of Europe and its universities.
Throughout 2024, EUA carried out numerous activities to advance its strategic priority of effective advocacy. On 9 January, EUA’s policy input ‘A renewed social contract for Europe and its universities’ outlined how universities and policy makers can work together to shape a strong, open and future-proof Europe during the 2024-2029 mandate of the EU institutions. Other key advocacy activities in 2024 included the Association launching its vision for FP10, contributing to the further development of the EHEA as a key Bologna Process stakeholder, outlining the next leap forward for transnational cooperation and European Universities alliances and bringing its R&I community together to discuss inclusive prosperity and competitiveness.
In 2024, EUA conducted broad horizon scanning, including numerous strategic foresight activities, on behalf of its members. For example, in July 2024, EUA published the ninth edition of its long-running Trends series. ‘Trends 2024 – European higher education institutions in times of transition’ provides an overview of how European universities experienced changes over the past five years and see their future direction. Further EUA horizon scanning work included the in-person return of the EUA Funding Forum, an EUA Council for Doctoral Education conference on the role of data in doctoral education, the launch of a new resource to map the digital transformation of universities and work on interoperability in European higher education.
The core value of European solidarity underpinned EUA’s work in 2024. Again, solidarity with university communities in Ukraine informed various activities, while EUA also worked within the EU to encourage engagement with the European Parliament elections in June – and beyond Europe with our global partners, through the Global University Associations Forum.
2024 also brought several milestones in EUA’s work to achieve its strategic priority of enabling enhanced performance among its members. For example, EUA’s Institutional Evaluation Programme celebrated its thirtieth anniversary, while the Association prepared to launch a pilot Leadership Development Programme and released a podcast series on how universities can use futures thinking and foresight for strategy development.
