Towards a dynamic European Education Area driven by excellence

The leading universities of Science and Technology (S&T) united within CESAER welcome the European Commission's (EC) communication on Achieving the EEA by 2025 as the third package of initiatives outlining more concrete steps to deliver on this goal. In our position, we specifically congratulate Commissioner Mariya Gabriel and her team with their proposals to effectively link the EEA with the European Research Area (ERA) (see our ERA position); boost Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) in education and training; foster transversal skills and digital skills in particular; develop a European approach to micro-credentials; and support higher education institutions in their institutional development.

Reaffirming our commitment to contribute to achieving the EEA by 2025, we propose to further strengthen the efforts along three lines:

1. Advance research-based education and training and boost Mathematics, Informatics, Natural Science, and Technology (MINT) and Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM);
2. Enable universities to deploy diverse roles in knowledge societies;
3. Adopt an open, inclusive and outward-looking approach.

Rik Van de Walle (President of CESAER and Rector of Ghent University) said: “We share the ambition of the EC to advance education and training that are future-oriented and attuned to the ongoing transformations of the world. As leading universities of S&T, we are prepared to assume a prominent role in contributing to recovery, resilience, sustainable development and digitalisation. However, only an EEA that encourages diverse institutional development paths and supports cooperation between universities across wider Europe, will truly empower us.”

“Achieving the EEA by 2025 will require sufficient and sustainable funding at the institutional, regional, national and European levels. We reiterate our call to provide sustainable funding for universities and our call to provide sustainable funding for European University alliances. We greatly regret the proposed cuts to the Erasmus programme as the main financial instrument to implement the EEA. We urge the EU member states to use the funding available through the Recovery and Resilience Facility to support research, innovation and education. Importantly, we reiterate our call to adopt an enforceable percentage of the gross domestic product target for funding for higher education in line with the best-performing regions in the world and to include it into the European Semester”, said David Bohmert (Secretary General).

Please reference this document using https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4072849

• Full position (PDF) available for distribution

For more information and enquiries, please contact our Secretary General David Bohmert or our Advisor for Higher Education Indrė Antanavičiūtė.