The Europe Unit sets out the critical role of the Higher Education sector in developing the skills required to compete in the new knowledge Economy.
Higher Education plays a crucial role in the creation of a knowledge economy. Universities in the UK and across Europe are key players in this process, serving, as they do, an EU where one third of employees work in knowledge-intensive sectors, and where these sectors generate half of all new jobs created. Richard Ellis of the UK HE Europe Unit outlines the key issues for the UK higher education sector.
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…an EU where one third of employees work in knowledge-intensive sectors.
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Europe’s universities will help formulate the knowledge economy through the European Union’s recently re-launched ‘Lisbon Strategy’. Its goal is to make Europe ‘the most dynamic and competitive knowledge economy in the world…capable of delivering stronger, lasting growth and creating more and better jobs’. The European Commission itself has made clear how integral Europe’s universities are to this process. In a speech to the European University Association Convention in Glasgow in April 2005, Commission President, José Manuel Barroso, confirmed that “universities have never featured so high on the Commission’s agenda”. To underline this, Commissioner for Education and Culture, Jan Figel, has stated that “knowledge and innovation are the engines of sustainable growth in Europe today, and universities are crucial for achieving the [Lisbon] goals set out by the European Council.”
In April of this year, the European Commission published a communication entitled ‘Mobilising the brainpower of Europe: enabling universities to make their full contribution to the Lisbon Strategy’. It sets out the role of higher education in the Lisbon Strategy and indicates areas where improvement is required (particularly in comparison with the United States) and where European universities are not yet in a position to make their full contribution. The UK HE Europe Unit, located in Universities UK, produced a response to the Commission’s communication, following consultation across the sector.
The UK’s position
The UK higher education sector has already begun driving forward the knowledge economy in Europe, through national initiatives such as the 10-year Science and Innovation Investment Framework and the Lambert review . Domestically, the role of universities at the heart of the knowledge economy has long been recognised and supported. The EU’s role should be to facilitate and support this further.
Research excellence
On the communication, UK HE endorses the call to support quality and excellence in Europe’s higher education institutions (HEIs). However, it is important that the correct balance is struck between supporting excellence by funding top-rated institutions on the one hand while also protecting existing and encouraging new areas of research excellence on the other. An over-concentration of resources on either HEIs or particular subject areas would upset this balance.
Quality and autonomy
The UK strongly supports the principle of institutional autonomy and the importance of an internal quality culture for quality assurance. Institutions with the most systematic approach to quality are also those which enjoy the greatest level of institutional autonomy, and vice versa. The UK sector is also keen that the European Commission’s proposals in quality assurance complement those developed within the intergovernmental Bologna Process .
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Universities need to be able to remain flexible.
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On governance of universities, autonomy is also crucial. We are pleased that the European Commission recognises it as a ‘precondition for universities to be able to respond to society’s changing needs’. Universities need to be able to remain flexible and a single approach for meeting society’s requirements would not aid universities’ capacity for change.
Funding
Finally, the UK higher education sector welcomes the European Commission’s calls for further investment from a diversity of funding sources. A swift and favourable resolution to the ongoing negotiations on the future shape of the EU budget is key to this.
In a speech to the European Parliament in October, Tony Blair issued a wake up call to European universities on competing with the US and tasked the European Commission to compile a report on “the challenge facing Europe’s universities… how we get more public-private partnership into sustaining them, and more graduate schools, linking business and the academic world across the European Union.” Adequate funding is vital to ensure that universities make their full contribution to the Lisbon Strategy and, in turn, to the achievement of the knowledge economy.
