EUA has launched a new online self-assessment tool for university-business research partnerships which is designed to help universities, companies and other external partners, to assess, reflect upon and take forward their collaborative research.
The new “U-B Tool” is one of the main outcomes of EUA’s EUIMA Collaborative Research project,* which has aimed to contribute to the development of monitoring tools and indicators for the assessment of university-based collaborative research. In parallel, EUA has published three publications relating to the outcomes of the project which provide the background for the development of the tool and additional information for stakeholders on collaborative research and knowledge transfer. More...

EUA’s Institutional Evaluation Programme (IEP) has recently completed one of its largest external evaluation exercises. 70 Romanian higher education institutions (HEI) have taken part in IEP evaluations over the last three years in the framework of two projects managed by UEFISCDI, the Executive Agency for Higher Education, Research, Development and Innovation Funding of the Romanian Ministry of Education, Research, Youth and Sport. More...

The second training seminar of the EUA-led ATHENA project, which aims to contribute to the development, reform and modernisation of higher education systems in Armenia, Moldova and Ukraine took place last week (3-4 November) in Portugal. The event was co-hosted by the University of Coimbra and the Polytechnic Institute of Coimbra. The main focus of discussions was governance and autonomy reforms in the higher education sector, a topical issue as some European countries seek to adapt university governance models to an evolving and increasingly competitive environment. More...

The biggest event for Mov'in Europe this year is coming. The Erasmus Student Network is organising a conference on November 17th in the European Parliament in Brussels where we will discuss the growth of mobility programmes!
International learning mobility opportunities for young people have widely increased in the last 25 years. The Erasmus+ programme follows this trend and will allow 5 million people to experience mobility by 2020. Despite the wide positive impacts of mobility, the ET2020 strategic target of 20% mobile students by 2020 is very likely to fail. More...

By Paul Clifton. Yes, it is that time of the year again. I can hear the groans of despair and reverberating thuds of Advocate copies hitting the waste paper bin, as staff realise I have again made my annual pilgrimage to brave little Tamworth University. Last year the founding Vice-Chancellor, also President, Chief Operating Officer and now beloved Supreme Leader, Cal D’Aria, was in good heart, cheered by the change of government and the appointment of the new Minister. This year he was jubilant about the proposed deregulation of higher education and the review of the school curriculum. More...

By Paul Clifton. The convergence through digital information and communication technologies (ICTs) of Internet audio and video with broadcast radio and television proceeds apace.  In early 2015, TPG Telecom, Australia’s fourth-largest broadband internet provider, plans to offer Internet Protocol television (IPTV) to 500,000 capital city apartments on its fibre-to-the-basement (FTTB) network, which will cherry-pick the most profitable consumers of infotainment, and thus reduce the capacity of the National Broadband Network (NBN) to cross-subsidise broadband services in the bush. More...

By Paul Clifton. This year’s Council for the Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences (CHASS) National Forum explored the theme of the Humanities, Social Sciences and the Public Good. NTEU sent two members to the conference, Dr Elizabeth Burns Coleman and Dr Emma Robertson, who provided these thoughts for Advocate. More...

By Paul Clifton. Changes to the Defence Export Controls Act 2012 are coming. Following advocacy by the NTEU, these changes should improve the present situation for Australian scientists working in universities, research centres and institutes, by reducing the administrative burden and the number of non-Defence scientists exposed to criminal liability. More...

By Paul Clifton. While the proposed establishment of Industry Growth Centres has been the subject of much of the limited public attention to the Coalition Government’s Industry, Innovation and Competitiveness Agenda, the policy has a range of notable implications for higher education. It is unsurprisingly that the relationship between industry and public research has come under significant scrutiny, in spite of misstatements by Industry Minister Ian MacFarlane in the lead-up to its mid-October release (including a proposal to reallocate research funding based upon patent registrations). More...