By Tia Loukkola and Rita Morais, EUA members’ participation in U-Multirank: Experiences from the first round.
The first results of U-Multirank (UMR), a multi-dimensional ranking of higher education institutions produced with seed funding from the European Commission, were unveiled on 13 May 2014. EUA has followed the development of U-Multirank since its beginning, most recently through membership in the Advisory Board. UMR has also been discussed by EUA’s governing bodies on a number of occasions and these discussions have demonstrated that a great variety of views on UMR exist among universities and their representatives: while some have great expectations of UMR and believe in its values, others have expressed major concerns about the initiative. Therefore, it was concluded that EUA should remain vigilant and monitor the project, but without taking a clear stand in favour or against it.
After the launch of the first UMR results, the EUA Board found that a short membership consultation would be useful. This would be an opportunity to ask universities about their experiences with UMR, not only their expectations or views on how the initiative might work. Thus, the secretariat carried out a short survey of individual EUA members in early autumn 2014. The results of the study are presented in this report.
References
European University Association, EUA, 2013, Global university rankings and their impact – Report II, by Andrejs Rauhvargers, http://www.eua.be/Libraries/Publications_homepage_list/EUA_Global_University_Rankings_and_Their_ Impact_-_Report_II.sflb.ashx (last checked 13 January 2015)
European University Association, EUA, 2014, Rankings in institutional strategies and processes: Impact or illusion? by Ellen Hazelkorn, Tia Loukkola, Thérèse Zhang, http://www.eua.be/Libraries/Publications_homepage_list/EUA_RISP_Publication.sflb.ashx (last checked 13 January 2015)
U-Multirank web-site (UMR) http://www.u-multirank.eu/ (last checked 13 January 2015)
European Commission (EC), 2011, Supporting growth and jobs – an agenda for the modernisation of Europe’s higher education systems, http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELEX:52011DC0567&from=EN (last checked 13 January 2015)
Frans van Vught & Frank Ziegele (eds.), 2011, Design and Testing the Feasibility of a Multidimensional Global University Ranking - Final Report, http://ec.europa.eu/education/library/study/2011/multirank_en.pdf (last checked 13 January 2015). Download EUA members’ participation in U-Multirank: Experiences from the first round. More...

EUA’s campaign on the Investment Plan and the European Commission’s proposed cuts to Horizon 2020 entered a crucial second phase last week.
Through an open letter to President Jean-Claude Juncker EUA urged the Commission not to u-turn on its previous commitments to European research. More...

EUA has published a new report that discusses the experiences and views of EUA members on U-Multirank, a multi-dimensional ranking of higher education institutions produced with seed funding from the European Commission.
Despite the issues raised by the survey respondents, the majority of them found that the cooperation with U-Multirank consortium worked smoothly and all those who actively contributed to the data collection in the first round are also planning to do so in the future. This comes in spite of the fact that four in 10 universities included in U-Multirank had no plans to use the results of UMR or did not yet know how they could use them. The paper can be downloaded here.
The first results of U-Multirank were unveiled in May 2014. The results of 2015 edition are expected to be published in March 2015. More...

The third of three ATHENA Training Seminars took place on 10-11 February 2015 at the University of Amsterdam. This capacity building event welcomed senior managers and university leaders from ATHENA project partner institutions, national rectors’ conferences and public authorities in Armenia, Moldova and Ukraine.
The focus of the event was human resources management (HRM) and staff development in universities and the role that these have to play in fostering autonomous and sustainable higher education institutions in the partner countries. More...

Partners of the EUREQA project (Empowering Universities to fulfil their Responsibility for Quality Assurance) met at Shkodra University “Luigj Gurakuqi” in Albania for their fourth and final regional training workshop. The event focussed on curriculum planning and development and included sessions on learning outcomes and teaching methods.
EUREQA is co-funded by the European Commission under the Tempus Programme (2012). More information can be found on the project website. More...

It has been a year since the amended Directive 2013/55/EU on the Recognition of Professional Qualifications came into effect. EU member states have reached the half-way point of the period in which they must transpose its provisions domestically.
EUA Senior Adviser Howard Davies has produced a detailed briefing note for EUA members, which focuses on the key developments that have taken place over the past year. 
To download the document, please click here. For further background information, please visit the Bologna Process and professional qualifications webpage. More...

EUA has a number of events planned over the next months. Further details of events that EUA is organising/co-organising are available through the EUA newsletter and/or website, but please find below a list of dates of several events taking place later this year.

EUA Annual Conference 2015
European Universities in Research and Innovation - People, Policies and Partnerships
Hosted by University of Antwerp, Antwerp, Belgium 
16-17 April 2015
(Deadline for early bird registration is 9 March)

3rd ALISIOS workshop  
Hosted by the Brazilian Association of International Education (FAUBAI), Cuiaba, Brazil 
25 April 2015
(Click here for more information)

8th EUA-CDE Annual Meeting
The Future of Doctoral Education – where do we go from here?
Hosted by Technical University Munich/TUM Graduate School, Munich, Germany 
18-19 June 2015 
(Registrations will open in early April)

2015 ERA Conference
A new start for Europe: Opening up to an ERA of Innovation
Hosted by the European Commission, Brussels, Belgium
22-23 June 2015
 
FRINDOC tool launch event 
Hosted by Imperial College, London, UK 
24-25 September 2015 

10th European Quality Assurance Forum 
Hosted by the Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education and Institute of Education, University of London, London, United Kingdom 
19-21 November 2015. More...

Commissioner Navracsics and the EUA Board agreed to continue their positive exchange at the University-Business Forum on 5-6 March 2015. More...

The statement warns that TTIP and TiSA cast into doubt the ability of national and regional authorities to determine the nature of their Higher Education provisions and calls on the EU to make no commitments in the fields of higher and adult education. More...

The report Institutional Autonomy and the Protection of Higher Education from Attack, published in October 2013, examined for the first time the interdependence of institutional autonomy and security. The report's recommendations included calls for raising awareness and developing shared principles. This led to the report Education Under Attack, 2014, which documented attacks on higher education in 28 countries. More...