In the final year of the United Nations Decade for Sustainable Development (2005–2014), more than 700 policymakers and practitioners of community-based learning and education from Japan and other countries are gathering in Okayama City to share experiences and exchange opinions during the ‘Kominkan-CLC International Conference on ESD’  from 9 to 12 October 2014. Okayama’s kominkan (community learning centres) have played a major role in supporting collaborative learning and promoting sustainable development. More...

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has awarded the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel for 2014 to Professor Jean Tirole (Toulouse School of Economics, Toulouse I Capitole University).
Professor Tirole has received the prize for his analysis of market power and regulation.
More information is available on the Nobel Prize website and the university website (in French). More...

Hosted by the University of Bergamo in Italy, from 9 to 10 October, EUA's 2nd Funding Forum gathered around 250 participants from 35 countries. University leaders and managers, researchers, representatives of student bodies, public authorities and private-sector partners came together to discuss and debate “strategies for efficient funding of universities”.
The findings of the ongoing DEFINE project, exploring strategies for efficient funding of higher education in Europe, informed the debates on a series of topics linked to university funding and governance. Particular attention was given to the question of “performance-based funding”, and the different understandings of this notion throughout Europe, as well as the types of mechanisms in place. Participants were also presented with research on funding formulae and the impact of various indicators on university performance. More...

The Institutional Evaluation Programme (IEP) is preparing to evaluate ten universities in the coming academic year. Seven universities will have full evaluations and three further institutions will have follow-up evaluations to assess changes implemented since their last evaluation.
Members of the IEP pool of experts recently gathered for an annual seminar in Porto on 2 and 3 October which focused on emerging trends in European higher education as well as stimulating team dynamics. The event also served as an opportunity to mark 20 years of IEP activities and disseminate the IEP anniversary publication “A twenty-year contribution to institutional change: EUA’s Institutional Evaluation Programme”. Further details about IEP can be found here. More...

The paper is based on the results of the EU-supported project called “Mobility Policy-Practice Connect” (MPPC),* as well as a number of other mobility-related studies and projects that EUA and ACA have been carrying out since 2009, when the 20% mobility objective of the European Higher Education Area (EHEA) was first agreed in the framework of the Bologna Process. More...

In the first week of November, EUA is organising two events in Brussels to present the outcomes of two different project activities relating to university rankings and university-business research cooperation. On the evening of 4 November (17.30-20.30) EUA will present a new web-based tool for the self-assessment of university-business research cooperation, the “U-B Tool”. Then on the morning of 6 November, EUA and its partners in the RISP project will present a new report: “Rankings in Institutional Strategies and Processes: Impact or Illusion?” at a breakfast event to be held from 8.30 to 10.30.
“U-B Tool” – a web-based tool for University-Business Research Cooperation
On the evening of 4 November (17.30-20.30) EUA is organising a launch event in Brussels where it will present a new web-based tool for the self-assessment of university-business research cooperation, the “U-B Tool”. Taking place at the Mission of Norway to the European Union, the event will also include a presentation of some upcoming reports on collaborative research and knowledge.
Both the tool and the series of upcoming publications are an outcome of EUA’s recent EUIMA-Collaborative Research project.* The tool aims to enable both universities and external partners to assess, reflect upon and take forward their research partnerships, by comparing current outcomes against their initial expectations and objectives. More...

In September EUA wrote to its individual member universities inviting them to take part in an online consultation on two topics: the multidimensional ranking U-Multirank and open access to research publications. The aim of this consultation is to gather universities’ views and experiences on these two topics in order to further inform EUA’s policy work in these two important areas for universities.
As this is an “institutional questionnaire”, only one response per institution will be accepted. EUA encourages all members to take part in the survey that will be open until 31 October 2014.
Member universities which require further information on the survey or wish to have their questionnaire re-sent to them should contact EUA at  umr-oa-survey@eua.be. More...

The European University Association today (10 October) publishes the 2014 edition of its Public Funding Observatory report, which monitors the impact of the economic crisis on universities and identifies trends in public funding to higher education institutions across Europe since 2008.
The latest report, that is presented on Friday 10 October at the EUA Funding Forum taking place at the University of Bergamo in Italy, is published together with an interactive online tool which provides a range of updated data for 28 European higher education systems,* with five new systems added this year. The observatory analyses both the evolution of funding over the last year (2013-2014) and longer-term developments in university funding since 2008, also taking into account the impact of inflation, changes in student numbers, and the evolution in terms of countries’ gross domestic product. More...

At the beginning of October, the European Commission (EC) announced details about the future development of the “RESAVER” initiative, which aims to establish a pan-European pension arrangement to boost researcher mobility. The EC also announced that it had published the Erasmus+ Programme Guide which provides detailed information about participating in the 2015 call for proposals and also funding priorities.
RESAVER scheme
On 1 October, the European Commission announced the launch of a consortium that plans to set up the “Retirement Savings Vehicle for European Research Institutions” or RESAVER initiative – which aims to establish a pan-European pension arrangement to boost researcher mobility.
New Erasmus+ Programme Guide and Call Published
The European Commission has announced that its Erasmus+ Programme Guide for the 2015 General Call for Proposals was published in English on 6 October, with “further language versions to follow at the end of October”. The Programme Guide provides detailed conditions for participating in the call for proposals, as well as information on the priorities for funding.
New version of the MOOCs scoreboard
To mark the anniversary of the Opening up Education initiative and the Open Education Europa portal, the European Commission said it had released an updated version of its MOOCs Scoreboard with “new interactive features to make it easier to find and track European MOOCs”. More...

CEEMAN, an international management development association, is organising its “International Management Teachers Academy” in Bled, Slovenia, from 7 to 19 June 2015.
The programme targets management educators and looks to provide an “opportunity for young faculty to develop their curricula, course design, teaching materials and particularly teaching skills and methods”.
For more information about the programme, please see the CEEMAN website. More...