Progress of University Alliance Projects

This report provides an analysis on the intermediate progress in the period of 2021 – 2022 of the 17 European University Alliances projects funded under the Horizon 2020 Science with and for Society IBA-SwafS-Support-1-2020 call - Support for the Research and Innovation Dimension of European Universities. This call aims to strengthen strategic research and innovation partnerships across higher education institutions in Europe and to link the European Research Area (ERA) and European Education Area (EEA) by supporting the modernisation of universities. The key objective of the call is to utilise the ‘European Universities’ as a testbed for exploring support for institutional transformation in their research and innovation dimension and implement seamless and effective content synergies between Erasmus+ and Horizon Europe. This report supports the implementation of the ERA Policy Agenda Action 13 “Empower Higher Education Institutions to develop in line with the ERA and in synergy with the European Education Area” and directly contributes to gathering insights for the development of a European Excellence Initiative (EEI) by the European Commission. The analysis in this report is based on the policy briefs, periodic reports, project deliverables, and reviewer assessments related to the 17 European university alliances in the first reporting period, covering the first 18 months of their implemented action plans. The report addresses the challenges faced by the alliances with cooperation, identifies good practices and tangible progress made in implementing transformational changes, and proposes recommendations for the various transformation modules. The seven modules aim to: (1) develop a common research and innovation agenda; (2) strengthen human capital; (3) share research infrastructures; (4) engage non-academic actors; (5) mainstream Open Science; (6) engage citizens and society; and (7) explore joint university structures. This report broadly assesses whether the inclusive and integrated cooperation approach of the alliances has thus far helped accelerate the institutional change of all alliance partners. Each of the main section in the report deals with a specific transformational module and includes recommendations that have been noted by multiple alliances or logically follow from the identified challenges, good practices, and progress reported by the alliances themselves.