The over 50 leading universities of science and technology united within CESAER have today published a position titled ‘Design principles for long-term performance and impact assessment of European University Alliances’.
Justyna Lubośna, Director of CESAER, Co-Chair of CESAER Task Force European Higher Education, and Rector’s Representative for International Educational Programs at Gdańsk University of Technology, said:
“For universities of science and technology, Alliances can become an important vehicle for delivering Europe’s long-term talent, knowledge and competitiveness agenda. However, they differ in mission, maturity, disciplinary profile, governance and national context. Moreover, member universities within an Alliance do not have the same starting points, capacities and constraints. Future monitoring should therefore not reduce Alliances to a rigid one-size-fits-all KPI framework, but reflect this diversity and enable them to take risks in pursuit of high-gain outcomes for the benefit of Europe’s higher education, research and innovation ecosystem.”
Peter Elspass, Co-Chair of CESAER Task Force Institutional Analytics and Head of the President’s Staff Department of University Development & Controlling at Leibniz University Hannover, said:
"CESAER’s expert work and exchanges with the European Commission have shown that assessing the transformative impact of Alliances is inherently complex. From an institutional analytics perspective, the key challenge is to understand what has changed, what role the Alliance played, and how this can be evidenced without creating unnecessary reporting burden. Future monitoring should make intelligent use of existing evidence, combine quantitative indicators with qualitative interpretation, and allow Alliances to evidence cross-cutting activities in education, research and innovation.”
Christian Gerhardts, Co-Chair of our Task Force European Funding and Policies and Head of the European Project Center at TU Dresden, said:
“Future assessment of European University Alliances needs a clear purpose and a realistic time horizon. Holistic institutional change and the development of sustained cross-border cooperation across education, research and innovation take time. Any post-2027 monitoring framework should therefore be aligned with the EU long-term budget, assess Alliances against long-term strategic objectives, and allow periodic work plans and mid-term reviews to support adaptation. This would help combine strategic continuity with the flexibility needed to respond to new evidence, barriers and opportunities as well as political and societal developments.”
In this position, CESAER proposes seven design principles to guide the future monitoring of European University Alliances:
Rather than proposing a fixed indicator framework, the position shows how these principles could be applied to competitiveness as one illustrative priority dimension for universities of science and technology.
For more information, please contact our Information & Communication Officer Julian Kasapov.
We use both our own cookies and those of carefully selected partners we collaborate with.
Check out our detailed Cookie policy » and our Privacy policy » .