ENHANCING CROSS-BORDER COOPERATION AMONGST EUROPE’S UNIVERSITIES

1. ENHANCING CROSS-BORDER COOPERATION AMONGST EUROPE’S UNIVERSITIES Dr. John H Smith Deputy Secretary General (Research and Innovation) European University Association, Brussels ERAC Meeting, 7 September 2012

2. GENERAL CONTEXT: ERA AND UNIVERSITES • Europe’s universities are increasingly European and international in their character and activities and both European and national policy frameworks and research funding schemes and instruments need to reflect and support this reality • Growing societal demand for new knowledge (through education, research and innovation) to tackle “grand challenges” whose nature, causes and effects do not respect national boundaries requires clearly new approaches on the part of all actors • To realize the full potential of Europe’s Universities ERA instruments need the following core requirements: • Medium to long‐term commitment to open competitive funding instruments governed by excellence criteria based upon assessments and indicators of best practice in the domains of both basic research and collaborative research with external partners • European, national and regional policy frameworks that seek to attain both a certain necessary concentration of research capacity and a flexibility to ensure a “level playing field” of opportunities for new research and innovation capacity building (in terms of both human resource development and infrastructure) ‐ including European Regional Development Funds playing a major role in this respect …2…

3. EUROPEAN STAKEHOLDER CONTRIBUTION • Progress on cross border operations (from linking nationally funded research programmes to creating “common pots” for transnational research programmes) is essential for Europe’s Universities • EUA could develop and play a key European Stakeholder role (given both its collective membership of National Rectors Conferences and institutional membership of over 850 universities) as the “representative organisation” for Europe’s universities in the ERA policy processes of preparing “Tackling Societal Challenge” programmes. • EUA’s input can be based on experiences and lessons of regional cross border cooperation and its efforts to build a European-wide platform to mobilize universities research and training capacities. Two examples - Nordic Five Tech & Nordtech, and the European Platform of Universities in Energy Research (EPUE). • EUA experience within the European Energy Research Alliance of the SET‐PLAN has demonstrated that this is a demanding task which requires Europe’s universities to work in new ways.

4. EPUE Questionnaire to EUA member-univs EUA-EPUE in a Snapshot • 168 universities (June2012) • University Research Areas in the Energy Field • - Specific topic areas, Total Number 1 684 topics • - Research Staff(*), Total Number 21 074 persons • - Average group size (FTE) per specific topic 13 persons • (*) Professors, faculty, doctoral holders, doctoral • Candidates, other researchers, technical assistants • Total approximated university research budgets: 8.5 Billion € • Energy-related estimated research budgets: 1 Billion € • Doctoral Areas in the Energy Field 636 • Master Programmes in the Energy Field 932

5. EPUE - Partnerships in Research Areas, Doctoral Programmes and Master Programmes

6. Contact: john.smith@eua.be Further information: www.eua.be