Category: networks

The European University Association (EUA) released a report “Strategies for the financial sustainability of European Universities alliances” last week. The briefing explores the long-term financial sustainability of European Universities alliances, noting that after six years of implementation, these consortia must move beyond reliance on short-term project grants. While the report proposes a “temple” framework for sustainability; built on institutional purpose, full-cost understanding, income diversification, efficiency, and leadership.It highlights several critical unanswered questions and unresolved tensions:

Unresolved Funding Responsibilities

• Public Funding Roles: It remains unclear which level of authority, European or national, should be responsible for the long-term structural and organisational costs of alliances.
• National Disparities: There is no solution yet for the “unevenness” of national funding, which creates financial capacity gaps between partners in the same alliance.
• Invisible Contributions: A significant portion of alliance funding comes from institutional block grants, yet this contribution often remains invisible in policy debates and is not systematically quantified.

Gaps in Cost and Operational Awareness

• Full-Cost Identification: A majority of institutions (55%) indicate that costs are not fully covered, and many lack a structured model to calculate the substantial indirect costs of participation, such as staff time and digital infrastructure.
• Diminishing Efficiency: While alliances are expected to generate economies of scale, the report notes that these efficiencies have “not yet materialised at scale” and that activities remain resource-intensive.

Strategic and Legal Hurdles

• Research Integration: Most alliances were formed for teaching cooperation; it is still unclear how they can effectively define common research priorities to successfully compete for Horizon Europe funding.
• Regulatory Barriers: National regulations continue to prevent or complicate critical sustainability efforts, such as joint staff recruitment and the sharing of physical research infrastructures.
• Future Formats: The report questions whether the current “binary” model (alliance vs. non-alliance) is sufficient, suggesting a need for more flexible, less cost-intensive cooperation formats that have yet to be defined.

Building on the report’s conceptual framework, these alliances have established specific thematic focus areas to drive their joint research and teaching activities. The following table compares the strategic priorities of a selection of major European University alliances:

Comparative Strategic Priorities of Selected Alliances

Implementation Challenges for These Priorities

While these themes are well-defined, the report highlights significant barriers to making them sustainable:

• Research Alignment: Because many alliances were originally formed for cooperation in learning and teaching, their shared research profiles are often underdeveloped. This makes it difficult to define common priorities for competitive funding.
• Individual Competition: Member universities often continue to compete against each other for the same European research grants individually or through different consortia.
• Operational Silos: Competitive funding applications are typically initiated at the laboratory or individual academic level, rather than through central alliance structures.
• Resource Sharing: Regulatory complexities and a lack of geographical proximity currently make the sharing of physical research infrastructure nearly “unattainable”.

The report’s conclusion is that to secure the future of European higher education, institutions must transition from short-term project “chasing” to a strategic model of long-term financial resilience. This report provides the essential roadmap for institutional leaders to align alliance participation with their core mission, accurately quantify hidden costs, and navigate the complex funding landscape between national and European authorities. 

While European University Leaders would benefit from reviewing the report whether or not they are currently part of any of these current networks, other countries (including here in New Zealand Aotearoa) can benefit from taking heed of the challenges and solutions proposed here.