4th EUA Convention of European Higher Education Institutions. “The future of European
Higher Education beyond 2010—diversity with a common purpose”.
Lisbon, 29 March 2007

Honorable President of the EUA, Distinguished Minister, Rectors,

Ladies and Gentlemen,

I am very pleased to be here, to be among so many committed actors
in Higher Education and happy to continue the dialogue the
Commission has with you. I retain good memories of the last
Convention in Glasgow 2 years ago, where both the President of the
European Commission and I addressed the theme of strong
universities for a strong Europe.

I am, of course, also happy that the EU is seen as playing an
increasingly important role in driving forward reform in Higher
Education and in supporting the actors involved.

We are at this time commemorating the 50th anniversary of the
Signature of the Treaties of Rome. They laid down the foundations of
the project for unity in peace and freedom in Europe.

I was born in Czechoslovakia, where a post-Stalinist bloc tried to
build unity without freedom. That approach can never work. Now we
have both unity and freedom as a reality. This process began with
steel and coal but has now moved on to perhaps more fundamental, if
less tangible, issues: now the debate is about identities, European
citizenship, cultures, the borders of Europe, how to create a Europe of
Knowledge and meet the challenges of globalisation. This is a
tremendous historical change.

Almost 40 years ago, a speech was made that changed the world, and
the whole world still remembers the central phrase of that speech: I have a dream. Well, I don’t suppose that my speech to you today will
change the world like Martin Luther King’s did, but I do have a dream
that I would like to share with you, and that dream is also about
change, change in higher education
I want to share with you today my dream for European Higher
Education beyond 2010.

I dream of European Higher Education and
Research areas that serve
our citizens even more then today and that are really open to society.
In this vision of how things could and should be, universities would
share new freedom and new responsibilities
.

I have some suggestions
on how to use this new freedom, but let me
first sketch out for you the basic conditions.
By basic conditions I
mean at least the following: the realisation of the he European Higher
Education Area and Research Area (including quality assurance), the
right mix of public and private funding, effective public steering and
responsive universities.

We have a tremendous legacy – Bologna was the first university. But
we should use this legacy to help build our future.
You will forgive me that I start my description of this vision, here in
Lisbon, with the Lisbon Strategy
, which in my view is inseparable
from our common efforts in education and research.
The Lisbon Strategy and the European Higher Education and
Research Areas

The Lisbon Strategy for growth and jobs, launched back in the year
2000, succeeded in raising the awareness of the importance of
education and training: All Member States agreed that the quality of
education and training, in particular in science and technology, is a
key ingredient for a successful European Union. We all became aware
that yesterday’s students are today’s early stage researchers and will be
tomorrow’s potential Nobel Prize winners.

After the Glasgow Convention, the future of European Universities
was a question debated at the highest level, for example at the
informal European summit at Hampton Court in London, and then at
the informal European summit at Lahti under the Finnish presidency.
At Hampton Court, along with questions such as energy supply and
security, universities were one of six issues identified as crucial for
Europe’s future. At Lahti, the question addressed was how to improve
Europe’s innovative capacities, and universities were at the centre of
the debate. You can see then, that universities are already closer tio
the heart of our European concerns.

I am sure, therefore, that Governments and universities will have
worked hard to have a solid and attractive European Higher Education
Area
in place by 2010, and that by then the Bologna Process will have
achieved most of its objectives:

• Free movement of students and teachers
• Effective internal and external quality assurance
• Qualifications frameworks and credit systems boosting
  transparency, recognition and lifelong learning (this latter point
  is not a luxury but a necessity).
  At the same time we will see much progress in the development of the
  European Research Area
  , with a European “internal market” for
  research with:
  4/18
• free circulation of researchers, technology and knowledge
• effective coordination of national and regional research
  activities, programmes and policies at European level and
• initiatives designed for implementation and funding at European
  level.
  Increased attention will be given to the intersection
  of the European
  Higher Education Area and the European Research Area, especially
  through the linking of young researchers at doctoral level. Doctoral
  candidates will be enjoying attractive conditions
  in which to pursue
  their research training, including employment status.
  Equally, universities will make sure that doctoral candidates acquire
  the generic skills
  that provide them with good career prospects. This
  means that they will receive, in addition to scientific training, the
  appropriate training in research, Intellectual Property Rights,
  management, communication, networking, entrepreneurship and team
  working.
• 
  Quality assurance
• 
  One of the key elements of the Bologna process is quality assurance.
  Indeed, I believe this is the core of the Bologna Process, because the
  basis for trust. We will deal with this at the upcoming Ministerial
  Conference in London. In the next decade, I am sure that trustworthy
  
  well connected internal and external quality assurance systems will
  have been set up in all European countries with feedback loops that
  allow for the constant improvement of output
  .
  It will be a normal procedure for any institution or department to turn
  to the European Register of Quality Assurance Agencies
  to find the
  agency best suited to their needs, anywhere in Europe, be it national or
  international, general or subject specific.
  Students will find it easy to choose their university
  , as all study
  programmes will be described in detail on the university’s website,
  indicating the learning outcomes to be achieved, the EQF level and the
  kind of accreditation or certification the programme or institution has
  been awarded. Sophisticated rankings
  will provide additional
  information for those who need it.
  The right funding mix
  The funding of higher education will still be an issue, but the situation
  will have notably improved, because Member States will have
  followed the recommendation the Commission
  made back in 2006 of
  devoting at least 2% of their GDP to the higher education sector – as
  opposed to around 1.2% today. Of course, there are a small number of
  European countries that achieve this higher investment level already:
• 
  they do it because they believe it is important and their success in both
  economic and social terms is the proof that they are right.
  Public funding will follow new principles, taking into account the new
  diversity of higher education institutions and focusing more on
  outcomes than on inputs: Universities will no longer be primarily
  funded for what they are or are called, but for what they do, and how
  well they do it.
  It is clear, however, that the larger part of the additional money
  invested in higher education and research will not come from the
  public purse but from private sources
  . Universities will have assumed
  more responsibility for their own long-term financial sustainability,
  particular in research. Many of them will have diversified their
  research funding portfolios through collaboration with enterprises,
  foundations and other private sources.
  Tuition fees
  belong to these private sources. When the insight, backed
  by various studies, that free access to higher education does not
  necessarily guarantee social equity gains ground, European countries
  will become much more willing to discuss and re-examine this matter.
  They will make sure to provide an efficient and equitable mix
  of
  student fees on the one hand, grants and loan schemes on the other.
  Since research findings had shown that money spent on a university
  degree paid higher returns that real interest rates, the idea of
  contributing to the funding of higher education will become more
  acceptable to private households.
  I want to underline here that efficiency and equity
  should be seen as a
  joint and fully compatible goals. There is no necessary trade-off
  between the two and they should not be seen in terms of an “either/or”
  choice.
• 
  I am well aware that some countries have provided examples of a
  rather successful combination of free tuition with social equity
  but I
  invite all stakeholders to take a fresh an unbiased look at the different
  options before us.
• 
  Effective public steering
• 
  Open European Higher Education and Research areas also mean
  freedom for universities. Governments will have abandoned any
  attempts to micromanage universities from above
  .
• This doesn’t mean
  that they will have withdrawn from their responsibility for higher
  education, on the contrary.
  Public authorities will stay responsible for the rules of the game, for
  example as regards qualifications frameworks, quality assurance and
  recognition. But governments will have entered a new type of
  partnership with their universities
  , limiting themselves to providing a
  regulatory framework of policy objectives, funding mechanisms and
  incentives for education, research and innovation. In this new
  partnership it is left to the institutions to take their own strategic
  decisions.
  Freedom and responsibility are two sides of the same coin: unless both
  sides are present, the coin will not be valid.
  How will all this freedom and responsibility be used? I expect there
  to be more responsive universities, more mobility, more diversity and
  more openness to business and society at large, also beyond the
  Europe borders.
  More Responsive universities
  Beyond 2010, universities will also have done their homework. They
  will have adapted their internal governance systems to cope with the
  newly acquired freedom, autonomy and accountability
  . Universities
  will be managed professionally in all their activities and will have
  developed institutional strategies supported by the necessary internal
  reforms.
  Universities will have learnt to make the most of the new openness
  that allows them to take their own decisions
  : to decide on the launch
  of new study programmes, choose their research portfolio and manage
  their human and financial resources as they see fit. They will also
  select their own students on the basis of their academic potential.
  Beyond 2010, European universities’ greater autonomy and full
  accountability to society will allow them to be more innovative and
  responsive
  to the more challenging global environment in which they
  operate by then.
  More mobility
  I also expect more mobility. By, say, 2015, it will be quite common –
  and no longer the exception – for any student to leave his or her
  university at one point of their studies, either to go abroad or to do a
  placement in industry.
  A good example of this is the new University of Luxembourg: there,
  mobility is a statutory requirement.
  Going abroad will not pose a recognition problem, as thanks to the
  European Credit Transfer and Accumulation System ECTS, the EQF
  and the numerous cooperation agreements between universities
  recognition problems will be rather a thing of the past.
  
  Mobility of teachers, researchers and administrators
  will have become
  a normal phenomenon. Existing obstacles, for example to non
  portability of pension schemes
  , will have long since been removed.
  Spending part of one’s working life abroad will be considered an asset
  in career progression. Moreover, the mobility of researchers across
  sectors
• from universities to industry and other research settings and
  vice-versa – will be a valued component of a rewarding research
  career.
  More diversity
  The large degree of autonomy will have lead to increased
  diversification of European universities, since it allowed them to build
  up their relative strengths on a European scale
  . An example of this are
  the five different universities that are co-hosting this conference!
  The days when most higher education institutions uniformly strove to
  qualify as the same type of research-intensive universities will long be
  over. Each university will have its own specific mission and profile
  ,
  matching the particularities of its environment.
  As a result we will see a certain concentration and specialisation
  of
  research-active universities, reinforcing the emergence of European
  centres of excellence which are competitive at the global scale
  .
  . We
  will also see the emergence of universities that excel in addressing
  research and training needs at a more national, regional or sectoral
  scale
  
  There will be different balances between education and research
  ,
  different approaches to research and research training, as well as
  different mixes of services and academic disciplines, but every
  university in this diverse system will aim at excellence
  in their area of
  specialisation.
  More openness to business and society at large
  Universities will make full use of the opportunities provided by
  lifelong learning
  , a concept that many institutions found hard to grasp
  back in the first decade of the century. In times of demographic
  change and globalisation
  universities have understood that there are
  less students enrolling directly from school, yet a greater need to
  continuously educate and upgrade the workforce
  and population at
  large. Therefore they will have reacted by providing study
  programmes to adult students and learners with non-traditional
  backgrounds
  .
  The qualifications frameworks
  , at European and national levels as
  well as at sectoral level, will facilitate the recognition of prior
  learning,
  including informal and non-formal learning. Initial worries
  about an alleged incompatibility of the European Qualifications
  Framework for Lifelong Learning, proposed by the European
  Commission, and the Framework of Qualifications for the European
  Higher Education Area will have long since been dispelled. I strongly
  believe that this will be the case.
  The notion of employability
  which had caused so many discussions
  and sometimes misunderstandings in the early days of the Bologna
  Process, will have been systematically integrated in curricular
  development. This means that students will be provided not only with
  discipline-specific skills but also with broader employment related
  skills.
  Universities will take care of their graduates, by fully assuming their
  responsibility for equipping them not only with knowledge but also
  with know-how and skills. The fostering of entrepreneurial mindsets
  and management and innovation skills
  will have become part of the
  normal learning outcomes of many study programmes.
  No university will doubt any longer the strategic importance of its
  relationship with the business community
  , as the advantages of
  structured partnerships with business are obvious: they allow
  universities to better share their research results and make use of
  intellectual property, patents and licences. Business partnerships will
  also lead to more funding, for example through expanding the
  research capacity or providing retraining courses for the workforce.
  It will have become a routine business for universities to communicate
  the relevance
  of their activities, in particular those related to research,
  by sharing knowledge with society and maintaining regular dialogue
  with citizens, alumni and local and regional players.
  The European Institute of Technology: A beacon of innovation
  and quality
  There is one particularly striking emblem of the openness of the
  European Higher Education and Research Areas: the European
  Institute of Technology
  . In ten years time it will have become an
  integral part of the European Higher Education and Research Areas.
  With its innovative form of governance, its interdisciplinary
  opportunities for high level study and research and the involvement of
  stakeholders, public and private, it has been serving as an inspiring
  example to governments and universities alike.
  The EIT will integrate the best teams, but not in one physical place. It
  will not be an MIT in Europe. Europe’s strength lies in bringing
  together the best. With the mobilisation of additional public and
  private resources, this is not a zero-sum game. I know the EIT is a
  sensitive topic and has provoked many reactions, but this was also the
  case with both the ERC and Erasmus. So, let us be innovative and let
  us be open-minded and we will find the right answers.
  
  The secret of its success lies in the fact that it does not impose rigid
  structures but that it facilitates the contact between students, teachers,
  researchers and business around promising new knowledge areas.
  The external dimension: Bologna goes global
  The fact that I am addressing you today together with two outstanding
  speakers from the United States of America and China shows you that
  globalisation
  is also affecting higher education: One cannot speak
  about the future of European higher education without looking at
  developments in other parts of the world.
  The Bologna Process is intended to make European Higher Education
  more attractive to non-European countries and the Lisbon Strategy set
  the objective of making European education and training systems a
  world quality reference
  .
  In my projection, this has long since been achieved: all European
  countries take active part in the European Higher Education Area and
  there are intensive links to other parts of the world through mobility,
  joint degrees, mutual recognition agreements and policy dialogue
  .
  Mr. Zhang, we both did part of our studies in the United States
  thanks to Mr Ward and his colleagues
  . In my vision of the future ,
  however, it has become equally important for brilliant young students
  from China, the United States and other parts of the world to study
  and research in Europe. It’s worth recalling here that, since 2000, the
  number of Chinese students in Europe has so far grown fivefold, from
  19,000 to almost 100,000.
  The European Commission has helped Bologna to “go global”, by
  providing support through our bilateral and multilateral programmes.
  We have recently been able to triple the level of support for higher
  education cooperation with the USA and double the level for Canada.
  Australia is interested in developing cooperation in the same way. We
  are now developing the proposal for Erasmus Mundus II. The first
  Erasmus Mundus
  programme has proved a huge success, attracting
  thousands of non-European students keen on profiting from joint
  degree programmes that are so characteristic of European university
  cooperation.
  Conclusion
  Does all this sound too optimistic? Well, to quote John Lennon, “You
  may say I’m a dreamer – but I’m not the only one”. Each new Trends
  Report of the EUA confirms that Europe and its universities have
  made tremendous progress
  , and I do believe that the European Higher
  Education and Research Areas could indeed, ten years from now,
  resemble the dream I have just outlined. But to get there,
  determination is important.
  Who would have imagined when the original four countries met in the
  Sorbonne in 1998, or even in 1999, when the Bologna Declaration
  was signed, that we would today look back on such impressive
  developments in almost all areas of higher education, like curricular
  reform, quality assurance and recognition. Israel has just applied for
  membership, which shows clearly that Europe is already seen as an
  attractive higher education. Major steps have been taken towards new
  forms of governance of universities and higher education funding.
  We have come a long way together, but at the same time, we must not
  delude ourselves
  : In most countries, in most universities, in most
  disciplines and sectors, the challenges remain enormous. It will
  require great efforts by everyone before we reach the truly open
  landscape of higher education and research that I have sketched out
  today. Higher education today is still suffering from uniformity of
  programmes, insularity and fragmentation, over-regulation and under
  funding, but there is more than a silver lining at the horizon.
  The European Commission
  will be at your side, supporting
  universities through the Lifelong Learning Programme, the external
  programmes, the Framework Programme for Research and
  Development and through policy initiatives. We will continue to
  facilitate the exchange of good practice between Member States
  through what we call the Open Method of Coordination.
  
  I would like to close with a last quote on the importance of
  inspirational dreams, a quote from Erasmus, after whom the most
  popular and successful EU programme is named. But let me first
  briefly remind you that with our new Lifelong Learning Programme
  we are aiming to triple the level of student participation in Erasmus
  mobility over the next seven years. Erasmus Rosterodamus once said
  “There are some people who live in a dream world, and there are
  some who face reality; and then there are those who turn one into the
  other”. Let us work together to turn our dreams into reality. In this
  context, I want to say that Europe is not really about geography or
  political entities: it is about values – including creativity and
  innovation. Universities are key to both of these.
  I congratulate the EUA on choosing this motto for their 4th European
  Convention and I look forward to hear your suggestions for “Europe’s
  universities beyond 2010, diversity with a common purpose.”