Charles University
Prague, 6 December 2004

Distinguished Rectors,
Ambassadors,
Professors,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Dear European citizens,

It is a great pleasure for me to meet you at the oldest university in Central Europe. I wish to thank your Rector, Professor Ivan Wilhelm, for his kind invitation to talk to you about the policies of the new Commission for higher education.

Since the birth of our universities, over 1,000 year ago, scholars have disregarded political and cultural barriers. Leading historians agree that the Medieval travelling scholar may well have been the first European citizen.
In more recent times, however, the university systems of Europe have evolved along national lines, reflecting the success of the Nation State as the main form of social organisation.
In contrast, our present time is marked by vast processes of integration: globalisation on a world scale and several attempts at regional integration, of which the European Union is by far the most advanced and successful experience.
If we try to talk about how to unite Europe, we cannot overlook the need to better coordinate universities and other centres of higher education across the continent. In other words, we need to build a coherent and attractive European area for Higher Education.
This need was already clear since the Bologna Declaration of 1999. 40 participating countries pledged to coordinate their reform efforts and achieve the goal of a European Higher Education Area by the year 2010.
The European Union gave itself a similar goal with the Lisbon strategy, which is an ambitious plan of reforms designed to take Europe into the knowledge economy.
The specific contribution of education and training to the success of the Lisbon strategy is specified in the programme called “Education & Training 2010”.
The aim of the programme is to turn European education into a world reference by 2010. Also, the programme specifies that the different national systems should be made more compatible than they are today. This would allow teachers, students and all citizens in general to
take advantage of their diversity instead of being limited by it.

These goals are reinforced by another important objective of the Lisbon strategy. The countries of the EU should bring their investments by 2010 in research, development and innovation to the threshold of 3% of GDP yearly.
In February 2004 the Council and the Commission jointly adopted the interim report on the implementation of “Education & Training 2010”.
The report stressed the need for structural reforms in higher education and called for specific policies to increase funding and improve the training of teachers, scientists, and researchers.
Another report recently presented by the group led by Wim Kok called for more investment in research and development. A good deal of this will benefit universities, where most of the research work is being carried out.
This means that there is a broad consensus around what needs to be done and why. Fresh investments would provide the means for steering research and higher education towards quality and excellence, towards flexibility and responsiveness, and towards openness to the world and within Europe.
The reforms involved both in the Bologna process and the Lisbon strategy stem from a common core. Both recognise the following main needs:

• Need for more and easier mobility;
  – Need to ensure fair and effective access of graduates from all EU countries to the European labour market;
  – Need to enhance efficiency of higher education systems, in particular through reduced failure and dropout rates and the reduction of excess study time beyond the official duration of curricula;
  – Need to make higher education more attractive both for us-Europeans and non–Europeans.

Ladies and Gentlemen:
So far, I have sketched the general background of the higher education policies and its
implications for the Lisbon agenda. Now, I would like to turn to the main challenges.

In recent years, the European Commission has studied the strengths and weaknesses of European education, in particular higher education. We have also carried comparative studies with major non–European systems. Number of such studies …..

Thanks to this work, we identified a number of issues in our systems.

First of all, I would indicate the extreme fragmentation into national, regional and other systems—such as the divide between universities and polytechnics.

This hinders the emergence of poles of excellence that would win recognition in Europe and in the world. In addition, fragmentation makes reforms and investments less efficient. For this reason, new reforms and funding should strive to make the different systems more comparable and compatible.

An issue linked to the problem of fragmentation is that of a Europe–wide system of quality assurance. Some progress has been made, but we are still far from mutual recognition of quality assurance systems and assessments.

Quality assurance systems in Europe lack a common reference framework. In Berlin, Ministers called for an agreed set of standards, procedures and guidelines, and for a review system for quality assurance and accreditation agencies.

The Commission proposed a new Recommendation built on the Berlin mandate. It suggests a few steps towards mutual recognition to make European quality assurance consistent and reliable.

Among other things, the Recommendation proposes a European Register of Quality Assurance and Accreditation Agencies, and the right for institutions to choose among agencies listed in this Register.

Another major issue emerged from our international comparisons:

• The EU invests only 1,1% of GDP in higher education, compared with 2,3% in the USA;

• In research, the figures are 1,9% in the EU and 2,7% in the USA.

Because universities have a role both in teaching and research, the impact of these two lines of deficit affect them in a cumulative way.

A closer look reveals that most if this disparity is due to the contribution of the private sector, which is much lower in Europe than in the States. Funding per student in higher education is on average more than twice higher in the USA, and in leading universities it is often up to 5 times higher.

I believe we need to rethink our university systems; in most European countries their
development has not kept pace with broader changes in society and the economy.

• Curriculum change is now in progress at hundreds of universities throughout Europe, but not always to the degree or depth necessary.

• The creation of networks is high on the agenda of many centres, but it often lacks the kind of European dimension that would be needed to foster excellence

• By and large, European universities are much less prepared for the worldwide competition for talent, prestige, and resources.

The issue of funding takes up special significance in the Czech Republic but also in the Slovak Republic. On average, our countries are investing less than the EU in higher education and research.

A few simple data will help me make this point. As I said earlier, in 2001, the EU average investment in higher education was 1.1% of GDP. This figure was 0,9% both in the Czech and the Slovak Republics.

Investment on research and development, according to Commission data, stands at 1.9% in the EU. The Czech figure is 1.3% and the Slovak figure a meagre 0.65%.
What is more worrying is that over the period 1997–2001, research and development spending average yearly increase in the EU was 1.3%. In the Czech Republic, the growth has been on average 3% while in the Slovak Republic it has decreased over the same period. Current data are more positive, which shows a certain recovery.

Given this analysis, what are the priorities for future action?

First, we need to identify the modernisation of European universities as a major priority within the Lisbon strategy. This means updating our systems to bring the service provided by universities more in line with the needs of our citizens.
I believe academic autonomy entails the responsibility to adapt to a world marked by
globalisation and the rapid emergence of the knowledge society. This means offering curricula and research programmes that are of high quality and strict relevance.
I understand this is more difficult to deliver in those European countries most affected by the funding gap and the delay in curriculum reforms. However, the stakes are high; so this is the time to show our worth and resilience.
I would like to indicate four priorities, which should be reflected in the light of courage to act:
First, it is important that we ensure easy and smooth recognition of degrees and qualifications throughout the European Higher Education Area. This is not going to be easy: academic and political leaders should give it their full attention.
This commitment is largely linked to the setting up of compatible degrees as envisaged in the Bologna process as well as in the Lisbon Strategy. In other words, there is a clear need for a European Qualification Framework.
Students will increasingly look for qualifications that are easily recognised in all EU countries, especially at postgraduate level. Countries and institutions that failed on this account would likely become less attractive.

In practical terms, mutual recognition of diplomas implies three moves:

• introducing the European Credit Transfer System in all study programmes;

• introducing the Diploma Supplement for every graduate; and

• ratifying the Lisbon Recognition Convention for fair and swift recognition procedures.

The second priority I would like to point out is the creation of networks that would include the EU universities, which are in favour of the integration of their study and research programmes.
While this may be somewhat less of a concern at a centre like Charles University, it should be a major priority across the board.

Within the European Higher Education Area, mobility, cooperation, and excellence crucially depend on networking.

The third priority is developing regional centres of training and research. These would bring together the actors on which economic growth and social cohesion depend: teaching and research institutions, private concerns, and government bodies.

There are already outstanding examples of universities serving as vehicles of local development thanks to their attention to local training needs, to their close cooperation with industry in innovation, and to their ability to serve as a window of their region to the wider world. These examples should be disseminated throughout our continent.
Similar experiences are likely to succeed if the universities concerned value their role in society and can react rapidly and flexibly. The level of private funding of higher education and research centres will increase only if students and enterprises are convinced that what they get in return is worth the effort.

Hence, there is a direct link between the need for more funding—above all private funding—and the need for more responsive and flexible institutions. This in turn implies favourable national legislations and effective leadership at institutional level. In this context I was pleased to hear about the reforms in the area of high education adopted in the Czech Republic.

The fourth priority is restoring European universities to a place of prominence in the world.
Over the last two decades, Europe lost its leadership to the United States. Since the early 1990s, the number of European students in the US is higher than that of US students in Europe.

What is worse is that American students are mainly undergraduates in the humanities who spend short periods abroad that count towards their US degree. In contrast, European students in the States are mainly postgraduates in sciences, technology and business who attend entire
courses—and often do not come back to Europe.
In a ranking of universities published earlier this year in China, the only European universities that figure towards the top of the list are British. Continental Europe—including its best known universities and technical universities—do not show well in the world ranking.
One may question the criteria of the study, but it is beyond doubt that this is the perceived reality in many parts of the world. At any rate, if our perceived quality is worse than our real quality, we need to do something to fix the mismatch.
To start with, our degrees need to become more readable. There is a lot of room for
improvement in the very names we give to our titles and in their structure.

Several strategies could be usefully followed to enhance the status of our universities.

• We could introduce a Europe–wide quality seal. This would increase the “brand value” of degrees and their awarding institutions, it would make them more recognisable and trustworthy and would enhance their competitive advantage. This is one of the goals set by Ministers within the Bologna process, both in their Prague meeting in 2001 and their Berlin Meeting in 2003.

• We could develop degrees which only Europe can offer along the lines of the new Erasmus Mundus master programmes. Erasmus Mundus brings together the best of various European universities and is open to students and teachers from Europe and abroad.

• We could increase our presence abroad to help make sure that our degrees are properly recognised. Please notice that hundreds of US institutions operate campuses in Europe while European campuses in the US are few and far between.

Ladies and Gentlemen:

I would like to conclude with a plea. I urge all the parties concerned—including national and academic authorities—to invest their political and financial capital in updating Europe’s higher education systems.
I am not calling for more funding to get “more of the same”. Our common effort should be directed to reforming and modernising our systems within a European framework. And this would be a totally new approach.
A 2002 Communication by the European Commission launched a consultation on the role of universities. This work has shown that most universities share the vision of a coherent and open European space for higher education based on quality, relevance, and fair access for all.

It has also shown that universities expect more from Europe and above all that they demand the freedom to cooperate and compete on equal and fair terms.
The Commission intends to take stock of these results and bring the agenda further, in full compliance with the principle of subsidiarity and in the light of the Lisbon mandate.
An important conference will gather decision makers from all Member and candidate countries in Brussels in February next year. That will be the perfect forum to share the main messages on the future of European higher education as they result from our research and discussions.
This will be followed by a Communication that will set out the main conditions under which European higher education can effectively make its full contribution to the Europe of knowledge—both in economic and social terms.
The Communication will also explore ways to mobilise the ideas, energy and resources needed to turn our words into facts.

Ladies and Gentlemen:
Our universities are a key factor of success for the knowledge economy and society. It is vital that the Union and its Member States invest more and more wisely into an area that will determine our future to such a large extent.
Thank you.