In teaching, the area with the most sustained engagement within alliances, we argue that the gap between intention and implementation remains large. The structural rigidities of national systems have so far proven more resilient than the collaborative momentum of alliances. However, the paper identifies that this very tension between structure and experimentation makes alliances valuable.
Although joint research activities can proceed without the regulatory structures within which joint teaching activities are embedded, they are more reliant on strong bonds between researchers. Unlike in teaching, where Erasmus+ filled a structural gap in transnational collaboration, research support for alliances was dwarfed by the funding ecosystem already available to researchers. In this context, the long-term sustainability of research collaboration requires a compelling narrative of what alliance-based research uniquely offers.
A closer analysis of alliances’ societal engagement revealed that third mission activities often operated through events rather than sustained relationships. Hackathons and living labs proliferated but too often functioned as one-off events. Alliances also faced a structural challenge: societal engagement is inherently local or regional, whereas alliances are transnational by design.
For alliances to succeed and be scalable, the initiatives they generate require institutional embedding. In other words, their sustainability depends less on increased EU funding than on regulatory reform. The alliances, in making visible the frictions and barriers in transnational collaboration, hold up a mirror to both universities and to public authorities, creating pressure for changing the cultures around and within universities.
In the paper, we make a number of recommendations to EU policymakers, national and regional authorities, and to universities:
- Ensure a key part of alliance funding remains focused on education and pedagogical innovation. Where alliances wish to invest in research or societal engagement, they should be free to do so, but not at the expense of education.
- Continue to support mobility and collaboration beyond the alliance framework. A healthy European Education Area requires both structured and unstructured collaboration.
- Facilitate alignment at European level on key administrative matters. This includes academic calendars, digital platforms, and student record systems. Sector bodies such as rectors’ conferences can play a central role in coordinating these discussions.
- Be strategic about engagement. Institutions should identify where alliance participation delivers genuine added value, and where the transactional costs outweigh the benefits. Not every innovation needs to be scaled; not every project must be retained.
- Support and reward participation. Without institutional incentives, participation risks becoming invisible or burdensome.
The European Universities Initiative has been a bold experiment, one that now stands at a crossroads. For this initiative to deliver sustainable change, universities must be encouraged and incentivised through stable, long-term frameworks, to move from a project logic to a process focus that values continuity and nurtures the communities of practice that have organically emerged. Innovation, in this context, is not about radically new products or designs, which, as our analysis shows, is not where alliances find their value, but about strengthening existing systems and embedding learning and outputs into the permanent fabric of our universities, making them more connected, more inclusive, more globally engaged, and better equipped for the future.
Jo Angouri, Professor at the University of Warwick
For the European Universities initiative to succeed, we need to overcome unrealistic expectations and to focus on where it can bring real added value to institutions. Above all, it means going back to a key original goal of the initiative, to use alliances as a key driver to make Europe’s universities more innovative, agile, and responsive to the challenges around us. This requires not only ambitious funding. It requires governments and regulatory bodies to learn the lessons of the initiative and allow institutions, and alliances, to be the best they can be.
Jan Palmowski, Secretary-General of The Guild