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The Turin conference, co-organised with the Association of Commonwealth Universities and co-hosted with the University of Turin on the occasion of its 600th anniversary, was the second in a series of three EUA conferences in 2004 which focussed on the social relevance of higher education and research for the development of a knowledge society. The first conference discussed the engagement of stakeholders in universities (Marseille, April 2004). The Turin conference provided an opportunity for international participants to address the implications for academic values of opening up universities to the world around them. The outcomes of the discussions in Turin provided the foundation for the EUA conference examining the role of research training in Europe (Maastricht, October 2004).
The higher education environment has changed considerably in recent decades and this transformation presents both threats and opportunities to the sector. The conference brought together international participants to discuss the implications of this new environment, both in terms of general higher education policies and the specific activities of individual institutions.
Conference proceedings in English and Italian.
For the European higher education sector, the past five years have seen many changes and transformations, some gradual, others more drastic and disruptive. ...
Why is the European Union important for universities, and what does the European Parliament do? ...
Higher education and research form the backbone of European innovation and development, and with it, the EU’s global competitiveness and long-term ambitions to tackle complex societal challenges. ...
This report analyses external drivers of change in six dimensions (political, economic, social, legal, technological and environmental) and outlines four different forecasts of possible futures for tr ...
University R&I, and its synergies with education and service to society, is the premier gateway to the knowledge and skills needed for scientific progress and sustainable societal development. ...
The European University Association (EUA) presents a set of recommendations on sustaining Ukrainian universities and enabling them to continue their research and teaching activities. ...
The Scorecard 2023 provides a full comparative analysis of the state of play of university autonomy in 35 higher education systems in Europe. ...
Scholars in many parts of the world are experiencing threats to their careers, liberty, and even their lives. Many of these at-risk researchers have to leave their countries in order to find refuge, s ...
The inclusion and integration of migrants is an important social and economic investment, and education and training can play a key role in it. Since 2015, higher education institutions have welcomed ...
This publication focuses on geopolitical changes, digitalisation and artificial intelligence, as well as the course of democracy, and how they may impact Europe’s universities. It outlines possible ...
Higher education institutions are key actors in the transition towards carbon neutrality and sustainable societies, as well as in reaching the objectives of the United Nations’ 2030 Agenda and the E ...
Tento kľúčový dokument je výsledkom rozsiahlych konzultácií a rokovaní s členmi a partnermi EUA počas šesťmesačného obdobia v roku 2020. Presadzuje víziu odolných a efektívnych univer ...
This seminal document is the result of extensive consultations and deliberations with EUA members and partners over a six-month period in 2020. It sets out a vision of resilient and effective universi ...
The process to renew the European Research Area (ERA) is gathering pace and is set to continue in the coming weeks, months and years. Building on previous policy positions, this policy input further e ...
Granting refuge and academic freedom to scholars and students, who had to flee persecution and wars in their home countries and regions, is an eminent function of universities. Over the past decades, ...
EU Commissioner Mariya Gabriel, during the European Research and Innovation Days in September 2020, stated that excellence and inclusiveness are two sides of the same coin in the new European Research ...
EUA Strategic Plan The need for strong universities has never been greater in addressing societal challenges. The Covid-19 pandemic, climate change, resource scarcity, ageing populations, migration a ...
EUA, All European Academies (ALLEA) and Science Europe have issued a joint statement on the urgent need to back commitments to academic freedom and university autonomy with solid actions. ...
What will happen to university collaboration in Europe after Brexit? With Europe’s research and mobility heavyweight leaving the European Union, many are understandably worried about what will h ...
The European University Association (EUA) applauds the European Commission’s proposal to put education front and centre on Europe’s social agenda. With its Communication on “Strengthen ...
EUA expresses solidarity with universities and scholars where academic freedom is under pressure, especially in Turkey where there are reports of retaliation against academics who have expressed their ...
At its Council meeting on 23 October 2015 the European University Association (EUA) called on policy makers at both EU and Member State level and higher education institutions in Europe to enable refu ...
The European University Association takes a keen interest in the European Neighbourhood Policy. EUA cooperates with higher education institutions and organisations in the eastern and southern neighbou ...
The Glasgow Convention provided the opportunity for over 600 EUA members and partners from over 40 countries to come together and take stock of progress made so far in developing the European Higher E ...
Ukrainian higher education institutions and their communities continue to be profoundly affected by the ongoing hostilities marked, on 24 February 2024, by the two-year anniversary of the Russian Fede ...
The European University Association and Civil Society Europe, a network of EU-level stakeholder organisations, have today published a joint letter addressing worrying and potentially counterproductive ...
The European elections will take place this year between 6 and 9 of June. On this occasion, the Youth Outreach Unit of the European Parliament is reaching out to European universities hoping that they ...
The Media & Learning Association’s 10th annual conference is back in Leuven, Belgium on 20-21 June 2023. ...
The Directorate General for Education, Youth, Sport and Culture (DG EAC) of the European Commission is currently conducting a consultation on the feasibility of developing a European framework for att ...
The “Open Science – From Policy to Practice” conference will take place in Stockholm on 16-17 May and will highlight different perspectives of shaping, implementing and embedding Open Science. ...
The European University Association has urged the European Commission to be mindful of not letting the notion of protection stand in the way of dialogue between a multitude of actors, both within Euro ...
In accordance with a December 2022 Council of the European Union decision to protect “the Union budget against breaches of the principles of the rule of law in Hungary”, the European Commission ha ...
EUA members Coventry University and Aarhus University, and the Council of Europe are launching a fully funded cotutelle doctoral research programme focusing on the role of universities in creating a d ...
The European University Association (EUA) has joined the “Improving Research Ethics Expertise and Competencies to Ensure Reliability and Trust in Science” (iRECS) project. ...
For over two years, Patrick Zaki, a student at the University of Bologna and human rights defender, has been detained and awaiting trial for publishing an article that refers to discrimination against ...
Last week, the EUA Council for Doctoral Education has released a new publication entitled “Building the Foundations of Research - a Vision for the Future of Doctoral Education in Europe” that iden ...
The EuroScience Open Forum 2022 (ESOF2022) will take place from 13 to 16 July 2022 in Leiden, the Netherlands. Several EUA colleagues will organise and contribute to various sessions during the confer ...
International Women’s Day provides an opportunity to reflect on the gender disparities in university leadership. This article, presenting the latest data and trends in female leadership in EUA membe ...
EUA along with more than 50 higher education networks, associations and organisations has joined Scholars At Risk to urge European governments and EU institutions to take immediate action to secure th ...
The secretariat of the Education Department of the Council of Europe launched a call for applications for the Best Practice Programme in Promoting Academic Integrity. The deadline for applications is ...
The Norwegian section of Scholars at Risk organises the event “Ten Years of Protecting Academic Freedom - What will the Future Bring?” to celebrate their 10th anniversary. The event will take plac ...
The Alexander von Humboldt Foundation opened the applications period for the 10th call of the Philipp Schwartz Initiative. ...
The European University Association (EUA), the European Students’ Union (ESU) and Scholars at Risk (SAR) join together to condemn the criminalisation of students and academics in Belarus. They call ...
Scholars at Risk – Ireland and ALLEA, the European Federation of Academies of Sciences and Humanities, organise the online conference “Academic freedom and intellectual dissent” on 8 June, from ...
The Magna Charta Observatory (MCO) will celebrate the 32nd anniversary of the Magna Charta Universitatum on 16 and 17 June, and will launch the new Magna Charta, the MCU2020, which makes the charter m ...
The Education Department of the Council of Europe launched the application period for Best Practice Programme in Promoting Academic Integrity during Covid-19, open until 20 August. ...
EUROSTUDENT organises the EUROSTUDENT VII final conference online on 18 and 19 May 2021. Registrations are now open and free of charge. ...
Magna Charta Observatory and the Global Student Forum organise the free webinar “Involving students effectively – what happens and how it improves universities: international perspectives” on 19 ...
Ghent University’s Research Department organises a MSCA Master Class for incoming postdocs on 20 – 21 May 2021. Applications are open until 19 April. ...
Sustainable learning and teaching was at the centre of the 2020 EUA Learning & Teaching Thematic Peer Groups, which have wrapped up their cycle of work. ...
The European University Alliance E³UDRES² (Engaged and Entrepreneurial European University as Driver for European Smart and Sustainable Regions) celebrates its official Online Opening Conference “ ...
International Women’s Day, celebrated on 8 March, is an opportunity that EUA has been seizing every year to further raise awareness on gender disparities in universities. In 2021, again, the Associa ...
On 14 February, Frédérique Vidal, French Minister for Higher Education, Research and Innovation, announced plans to order the French research agency (CNRS) to conduct an enquiry into French universi ...
In Turkey, the practice of appointments of university rectors by the President of the Republic is generating a new wave of criticism. The recent nomination of a new rector at Bogaziçi University in I ...
The European University Alliance E³UDRES² (Engaged and Entrepreneurial European University as Driver for European Smart and Sustainable Regions) calls for scientific contributions, relevant concepts ...
The School of Human Rights in Turkey, an EU-funded project that started during the state of emergency in Turkey, organises the International Online Conference of Academic Freedom as a Human Right on 1 ...
The Institute for the Development of Education (Croatia), together with 22 partners/associate partners from six EU Member States including EUA, launched the Erasmus+ project SHEFCE – Steering Higher ...
EUA partner Scholars at Risk (SAR) organises “Free to Think 2020: Responding to Attacks on Higher Education” on 19 – 20 November 2020. ...
EUA member in Ukraine Vasyl Stefanyk Precarpathian National University, together with the NGO “Sustainable Development Landmarks”, organise the 1st virtual international conference on sustainable ...
The nominations for the 2020 edition of the UNESCO King Hamad Bin Isa Al-Khalifa Prize for the use of Information and Communication Technologies in education are open until 18 December 2020 (midnight, ...
EUA is embarking on an initiative to develop a vision for Europe’s universities in 2030. This vision by the sector for the sector will serve as inspiration for EUA members, as well as for policy mak ...
The Erasmus+ Refugee Education Initiatives (REIs) consortium has launched a call for papers for a workshop on “Exploring European Experiences in Providing Higher Education for Refugees and Asylum Se ...
Following the recent news of further infringements on university autonomy and academic freedom reflected in two decrees (675 and 676) published in the Turkish Official Journal on 29 October 2016, the ...
20 January 2016 The European University Association (EUA) would like to express its concern for the academics in Turkey being investigated for expressing their views, under the petition “We Will no ...
1 October 2024, 11.00 – 12.00 CEST Following the publication of EUA’s ‘Trends 2024’ report, the authors will present the main findings and share their analysis of current developments in the ...
As part of the EU’s response to the Russian Federation’s invasion of Ukraine, MSCA4Ukraine provides support to displaced researchers from Ukraine. Funded by the European Commission under the Marie ...
The 2022 EUA Annual Conference took place on 28-29 April in Budapest, Hungary. The conference provided a platform to discuss which values shape the missions and strategic objectives of Europe’s univ ...
Belarussian students face significant new barriers to studying abroad due to a recent government decree. Iris Kimizoglu, President of the European Students’ Union, calls on higher education leaders ...
What would it actually mean if ‘Brussels’ had more of a say on education policy? EUA’s Anna-Lena Claeys-Kulik weighs in on the resurging debate on whether the EU has the power it needs to foster ...
For Oksana Seumenicht, it is imperative that the focus of the international community’s support to Ukrainian higher education now shifts to long-term goals. New academic links to Ukraine, forged by ...
Reacting to EUA’s Research and Innovation Agenda 2027, Sebastian Wörwag describes how universities are the engines that will transform our societies through transnational and transdisciplinary exch ...
Three MSCA4Ukraine fellows recently shared their first experiences of the scheme. For EUA’s Michael Gaebel, their testimonies underline the scheme’s added value, which will hopefully soon be exten ...
Suhailah Akbari argues that international academic institutions must take proactive action in the face of an unprecedented crackdown on women and girls’ access to education in Afghanistan. In this p ...
For Research Europe, EUA’s Vinciane Gaillard and Stephane Berghmans weigh in on recent efforts to rebalance research assessment and look at how it could bring about a much-needed transformation of p ...
Can, and should, quality assurance play a greater role in ensuring that common academic values are respected? EUA’s Maria Kelo examines recent debates on the scope of QA in higher education. Qualit ...
The widespread embrace of “university values” is problematic and distracts from the central value of our profession: academic freedom. Building on his contribution to a debate at EUA’s 2022 Annu ...
The European University Association reflects on how the higher education sector has responded to the war in Ukraine and the attack on Europe’s fundamental values.Writing about universities and value ...
Micro-credentials are expected to widen participation in higher education by supporting inclusion and facilitating access to education. They are also expected to close the skills gaps in the labour ma ...
All universities need more autonomy to be innovative, not only those engaged in the European Universities Initiative. EUA expert Anna-Lena Claeys-Kulik writes that limiting flexible collaboration opti ...
On the occasion of EUA’s 20th anniversary, Cardiff University President and Vice-Chancellor Colin Riordan analyses the role of the Association in a changing world. The piece highlights that while so ...
As we look forward towards a future of “Universities without walls”, this article by EUA President Michael Murphy points out that universities need better and coordinated communication of their wo ...
What will the future hold in terms of geopolitics, digitalisation and democracy? How will this affect universities? This University World News piece delves into different scenarios, offering a reflect ...
As universities strive to realise human potential, preserve the planet and promote health and prosperity, the new Magna Charta Universitatum offers a fresh opportunity to adhere to fundamental princip ...
A new EUA study reveals that higher education institutions in Europe are highly engaged in activities that address environmental challenges and the achievement of the UN Sustainable Development Goals ...
Sustainability is an important issue for universities. At Trinity College Dublin, the current strategic plan articulates sustainability as a priority supported by two goals: alignment to the UN Sustai ...
The messages from science are clear: The coming decade will be crucial in combating the climate crisis. Clearly, universities have a key role to play in addressing the challenges. Göran Finnveden and ...
The preservation and development of culture is part of the mission of universities. This article, from the President of HRK, explores how this mission widens the knowledge triangle of education, resea ...
The Academic Freedom Index provides a robust assessment of academic freedom levels worldwide that can inform and guide advocacy and policy efforts. Co-developers Janika Spannagel and Ilyas Saliba from ...
On the occasion of EUA’s 20th anniversary, President Michael Murphy and long-time senior expert and Director Michael Gaebel look back at two decades of global university collaboration. Offering a br ...
Students from disadvantaged and marginalised backgrounds still struggle to participate in higher education. Covid-19 has made inclusion even more difficult. EUA expert Luisa Bunescu discusses three so ...
Europe’s universities are upping their game for the new decade, to meet the challenges of our digital and green transitions, writes Amanda Crowfoot.As the pandemic has shown, research and innovation ...
As the world faces complex challenges, universities are taking the time to reflect about the future strategically. How do we want Europe’s universities to look in ten years? What should be their rol ...
The Covid-19 pandemic presents new challenges for inclusive teaching. This article shares the experience of the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia in Italy and discusses how to act towards inclusi ...
The important upsurge in statements of support for academic freedom at the intergovernmental level in Europe points to the urgent need for meaningful implementation. Civil society and higher education ...
The radical digitalisation of higher education due to the Covid-19 crisis offers an opportunity to engage in deeper institutional change addressing the digital and green transitions. As Natalia Timus ...
As reflected by the European Green Deal, the environmental revolution is likely the main challenge of the 21st century. And it is a great opportunity for Europe to take the lead. But, according to Kar ...
Micro-credentials are growing exponentially in popularity, attracting the interest of various stakeholders due to their flexibility and ability to meet the demands of a rapidly changing labour market. ...
Providing students with the skills for multidisciplinary collaboration and entrepreneurship supports social impact. The Tampere Universities community promotes this endeavour through multidisciplinary ...
The Bologna Follow-up Group has developed a new strategic document that defines ten principles and guidelines to strengthen the social dimension of higher education in Europe. Ninoslav Scukanec Schmid ...
The coronavirus pandemic demonstrates the renewed importance of universities’ civic engagement, whether it takes the form of a direct contribution to healthcare, research on the virus, or explaining ...
Refugees bring with them skills, qualifications and experience – including in the medical field. This has been frequently stated but requires proactive acknowledgement and enhanced integration measu ...
Grants are important for researchers’ careers and only the best applicants receive them. So, what is the best and how are the best selected? As Helene Schiffbänker from Joanneum Research in Vienna ...
A new year brings new opportunities to address global challenges. EUA President Michael Murphy addresses university leaders and the crucial role of higher education in discovering solutions to urgent ...
The support for student engagement in volunteering, civic, cultural, associative and solidarity activities is becoming part of the institutional agenda at European higher education institutions. The E ...
The Global Convention on Recognition will provide a strong instrument for higher education institutions in dealing with the increasing global mobility of students. Allan Bruun Pedersen, Vice-President ...
University autonomy and academic freedom should be more than topics of proclamation and celebration. Sijbolt Noorda, President of the Magna Charta Observatory, discusses why they should be lived in th ...
Jón Atli Benediktsson, Rector of the University of Iceland, reflects on the future and why universities must protect their core values, while being open to re-evaluating all aspects of their work. Th ...
Universities are based on and guided by values. It is vital that each institution declares them as principles of good practice and puts in place strategies to embrace and practice them. Francesco Uber ...
How can universities use the renewed attention to values to their advantage? A key step is to move from a negative discussion to a positive one. EUA’s Monika Steinel tells us how.Institutional auton ...
To remain world leaders in research and innovation, Europe’s universities need more supportive policies and funding frameworks, write EUA President Rolf Tarrach and President-elect Michael Murphy fo ...
Life-long learning is increasingly a necessity if workers are to remain competitive in today’s high-skilled job markets. Martin Jefflén, President of Eurocadres, makes the case that all responsible ...
By Tia Loukkola, Director of Institutional Development and senior quality assurance expert at the European University Association. In Europe, quality assurance has made major strides since the beginn ...
Academic freedom is the latest of the many victims on Hungary’s path towards an illiberal state, argues Lesley Wilson. This editorial was first published on The Parliament Magazine on 7 September 20 ...
The Hungarian government’s clampdown on gender studies and research into migration sets a dangerous precedent. This editorial was first published on The Guardian on 6 September 2018. Universities i ...
It has been 10 years since the European Universities’ Charter on Lifelong Learning was published. It outlines 10 commitments for universities and governments to support the development of lifelong l ...
The Inspireurope+ project works to coordinate and strengthen support in Europe for researchers at risk. It runs from September 2022 to August 2025, building on the work undertaken by the previous Insp ...
As part of the EU’s response to the Russian Federation’s invasion of Ukraine, MSCA4Ukraine provides support to displaced researchers from Ukraine. ...
UNI(di)VERSITY builds upon the results of the inHERE project focused on supporting EU HEIs’ efforts to welcome refugee students and staff. The project broadens the scope of intervention in two ways: ...
InSPIREurope is a Europe-wide initiative to support researchers who are at risk due to discrimination, persecution, suffering or violence. Funded under the European Commission’s Marie Skłodowska-Cu ...
Equity, diversity and inclusion and belonging (EDIB) are important priorities for universities and are also reflected in their broader contribution to society. At many institutions, EDIB has become f ...
Since the invasion of Ukraine by the Russian Federation on 24 February 2022, the European higher education and research community has consistently shown its solidarity and support to Ukrainian univers ...
The missions and work of universities in Europe and elsewhere are underpinned by a number of fundamental values. EUA as an Association strongly believes in and works towards upholding these. The Asso ...
The Bologna Process is an intergovernmental higher education reform process launched in 1999 that includes 48 European countries and a number of European organisations, including EUA. It is dedicated ...