Brussels in brief: Updates on EU developments in education and research

Directors General for Higher Education recently met in Vilnius to discuss a number of issues related to higher education funding. Meanwhile, at last week’s Competiveness Council meeting, research ministers from across the EU held a policy debate on the state of the Innovation Union strategy and on the steps forward towards the completion of a common European Research Area (ERA). Finally, the European Research Council (ERC) has joined an international partnership supporting arXiv, one of the major scientific repositories in the areas of physics and mathematics, which is operated by Cornell University Library (US).
Presidency of the Council of the EU: Meeting of Directors General for Higher Education
Directors General for Higher Education from across the EU met recently in Vilnius (under the Lithuanian Presidency for the Council of the EU) to discuss higher education funding, in particular focusing on the issues of sustainability, efficiency and equity, and addressing reforms of the modernisation of higher education in the member states. EUA’s Thomas Estermann was invited to present EUA’s work in this area, including its Public Funding Observatory and its activities through the DEFINE project – Designing strategies for efficient funding of higher education in Europe.
More information on the meeting is available on the Research and Higher Education Monitoring and Analysis Centre (MOSTA) website.
Outcomes of the Competiveness Council meeting
At the latest “Competiveness Council” meeting in Brussels, European research ministers held a policy debate on the state of the Innovation Union strategy and on the steps forward towards the completion of the ERA. The debate, which took note of the EC’s ERA progress report, aimed to provide an input to the preparation of the forthcoming European Council summit on 24 and 25 October. According to the Council, many delegations highlighted the potential of the public and private innovation partnerships in the configuration of the ERA. More...