The European Union has unveiled long-awaited plans for a European degree and cross-border legislation for higher education.
Brussels officials say their new European universities strategy, including cooperation on higher education laws, will improve student mobility and academic cooperation
Announcing a new European strategy for universities on 18 January, Mariya Gabriel, the European commissioner for research and education, explained that the plans would help to create “modern transnational campuses” and would provide students with “easy access to mobility abroad to allow for a truly European study path and experience”.
Under the proposals, the EU will also expand the number of European university alliances to 60 by mid-2024, with the associations covering more than 500 universities.
The integration of teaching across borders and the creation of joint degrees between universities have, however, been hampered by legal and regulatory red tape within different EU countries, with legislation prohibiting some universities from sharing responsibilities for assessment or standards with other international institutions.
The European universities strategy also proposed that member states work towards a joint European degree and scale up the European Student Card initiative, which should be available to all mobile students by the end of 2022, and to all students by mid-2024.
Margaritis Schinas, the vice-president of the European Commission, claimed that the new proposals would “take transnational cooperation in higher education to a new level” and lead to “shared values, more mobility, broader scope and synergies to build a genuinely European dimension in our higher education”.