The University of Maribor and the ATHENA European University invite you to the conference

"Integration of Research, Teaching and Innovation in a European University Campus - Why, How and When" 

 

The European University Initiative celebrated its 5th year of development. During this time, the number of European university alliances grew to 65 with co-financing by the European Union, one with former co-financing and 13 more with qualitative applications without co-financing. In their development, the alliances encountered many open questions related to the realisation of the key objectives of the initiative, the manner of their implementation in the light of the capacities of the alliances and the diversity of the current legal frameworks within the Common European Higher Education Area, and faced the challenge of finding the new solutions that will enable the long-term strengthening of their competitiveness at the global level.

The diversity of the European Higher Education Area is an advantage, but it also poses many challenges. Yet, besides the focus on integrating the Higher Education Area in the sphere of joint study programmes and mobility of staff and students, the question of harmonisation of the European Research Area and the Higher Education Area gets into the foreground of the tasks of the European University Alliances. The core mission of a university is education, research and knowledge transfer. The main cognitions out of the past decade of economic and social crises, also in the process of European University Alliances, are that both European Areas of Research and Education lose ground in the competition with other world’s research and higher education areas, leading to the loss of European industrial leadership and loss of innovation potential.

After five years of successful development of the European Universities Initiative, it is vital to continue the debate on the challenges and opportunities for its even more successful growth in the future, especially from the perspective of a holistic approach to the European University as a higher education institution pursuing its mission at the European level in the field of education, research and knowledge transfer. In this context, it seems appropriate to take up the challenging mission to further integrate European Higher Education and the Research Area – European University Alliances should be the frontrunners and co-creators of this process.