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European higher education is undergoing a bold experiment in cross-border collaboration. In this clip, Brian MacCraith explores the rise of European University Alliances — cross-national consortia aimed at deepening student mobility, research collaboration, and civic engagement. Backed by the European Commission, these alliances represent a significant policy shift, challenging traditional models of governance, autonomy, and degree design. MacCraith discusses the opportunities and limitations of this initiative, including its emphasis on diverse institutional types, stackable credentials, and societal relevance. He highlights the strategic value of involving both well-established and lesser-known universities, making the model inclusive and geographically balanced.
Well, I think the challenges in Europe are much the same as anywhere else in terms of funding, public legitimacy, AI, the rapid changing society, geopolitics, critical issues as well, immigration; all of those issues are there. But what's very interesting about Europe is that, particularly within the European Union, that's the 27 member states of the European Union, there's a very clear policy emerging about the future of universities and they have created the structure of European university alliances, and the European Commission has funded close to 60 of those right across Europe, typically 8 to 10 universities each coming from a different member state, but acting collectively across many aspects of their existence. Now one of the motivating factors was to provide a pathway for students, who could navigate their way across these universities seamlessly,y picking up credits as they do, and getting a really rich experience, a rich cultural experience, a rich language experience, and almost being able to design their own degree program, now within limits. Now, all of those developments and pilots of these developments for the future raise challenges about governance, autonomy, funding, and so on. But it's very interesting that that's the way they're looking, and even some recent pronouncements from the European Commission and the new European Parliament very directly say the future of higher education in Europe is around these European university alliances. And as you know, Arizona State University, ASU, has become a global partner of one of these. And that's very interesting for the example of the modern American university engaging with the university of the future in Europe. And that there's a very rich exchange of views and perspectives happening within that context. So the creation of the alliances is generally around common visions, common themes. You mean some of the alliances are predominantly focused on issues of sustainability, others around civic engagement, others around regional innovation. So they all have a common theme bringing them together. So, they're not consortia of convenience. They're actually focused. So, the notion is again that they can do more together than they can do alone. The notion also is that students and the mobility of students is a critical part of learning, so that the menu of opportunities for students becomes considerably greater. The shared knowledge between academics and different countries, the formation of consortia for research projects becomes clear as well. So, I know in the one that Arizona State University is a partner of Utopia; there's a broad menu of activities in that regard that bring the universities together. Issues of civic engagement, issues of innovation in society, issues of the transformation of learning through [the] appropriate use of digital technologies. All those are common themes that bring the entities together. And it's remarkable to witness, you know, universities coming from really diverse parts of Europe coming together on a regular basis and finding ways to work together. But you also asked about asked about the challenges. How far can this model go? Because you get to the very heart of governance and national engagements with governments, the autonomy of individual institutions. Do these become super universities? All of these things are being worked through I personally can't imagine it going the full distance that they become a single entity. But I think there are tradeoffs happening in governance and autonomy that allow the benefits of these alliances to work. But I think it's an experiment that's only at the very beginning at this stage because these alliances are only five or six years in existence. I think it'll take time for these to pan out. But certainly, the next phase of the program of the European Union has those alliances at the core of not just education, but also research and innovation. So again, a bit like co I think it's a very large experiment from which there will be a lot of learnings things that work, things that don't work. What are the challenges of governance and autonomy? You know the issues of common degree programs, I mean it's often complex enough when you've just two universities involved. What will a university degree look like when you have 10 universities potentially involved? I think that raises all sorts of interesting challenges. It also brings into play the whole notion of the stackable credentials, micro-credentials and , you know, does that become part of the picture as well? And that one maybe, perhaps the traditional degree may go away? And it looks like a portfolio of capabilities that has been navigated throughout the whole the whole learning journey of the student? But I think it's very interesting, at the at the very core of this, as we discussed in a previous context is is the learning experience of the students themselves.