Jo Ritzen, President of Maastricht University since 2003, served as Vice President at the World Bank and as Minister of Education, Culture, and Science of The Netherlands. He has published widely on the economics of education, public finance and public policy. “Jo Ritzen had written one of the most important recent books on the structure and financing of universities, on the Bologna process, on the challenges facing the 21st century university.” – Yehuda Elkana, former President of Central European University, Hungary  “Ritzen’s book is a must-read for students and scholars of higher education and those that take a deep interest in Europe’s future in the world.” – Detlef Mueller-Boeling, former Director of Centre for Higher Education Development, Germany   "The European universities of the future will be autonomous, innovative, and professional universities. They will contribute to a vibrant Europe, where there is openness to new knowledge and ideas, in the arts, in the sciences and in the economy. Of course, optimism in not enough: we need immediate action to realize this dream." – João Mendes, Adjunct Coordinator of the Innovation and Enterpreneurship Newsletter of Vida Economica, Portugal

www.aup.nl | amsterdam university press

jo ritzen A Chance for European Universities

Europe’s universities are well represented among the world’s top 200 universities, but almost absent in the top 50. They are economically, culturally and socially underexploited. There is an urgent need to alter the context for European universities to strengthen the European competitive position through economic innovation, increased social cohesion and a more vibrant cultural dynamism. The unbalanced demographics in the world – with a virtually constant supply of graduates in the developed West and a potentially fast increase in the number of graduates in developing countries – pose both new threats and new opportunities for European universities. Jo Ritzen outlines a series of changes necessary to make European universities more successful, from denationalisation of the Bologna process with emphasis on European-wide accreditation and quality control, to rebalancing the financing system so that the public budget cuts of the past decades can be met by private sources.

jo ritzen

A Chance for European Universities amsterdam university press

A Chance for European Universities Or: Avoiding the Looming University Crisis in Europe

Jo Ritzen

Amsterdam University Press

Acknowledgments This book has greatly benefitted from my long march through different universities dating back to my first encounter with the economics of education in 1968 through Louis Emmery. The longer the march, the more I realize the impact of my professors, Kees Verhagen and Huibert Kwakernaak in Delft and the as wise as brilliant pedagogue Jan Tinbergen in Rotterdam during my Bachelor and Master education. In Berkeley I taught, but I learned even more – with Charles Benson as my mentor. The marine-like training in the political economy of education – under the gentle guidance of Wim Kok has also had an indelible impact. My colleagues ministers Gudmund Hernes and Eduardo Grilo enlarged my mental frame of mind. In this passage through university education and research there were many, many other people who have inspired me and nourished me with concepts and ideas. When the moment came to pull this all together – as an inevitability so it seems – my friends and colleagues of Maastricht University were of great help. But so were many others, of whom I mention Debra Stewart, Yehuda Elkana, Jean-Robert Pitte, Philippe Aghion and Sijbolt Noorda. Gabriele Marconi and Nina Gormanns provided excellent research assistance. Willem Mattens contributed greatly to Chapter 6. I am most grateful to all of them but maybe mostly for the joy – Americans would say “the fun” – of learning from them. I started this journey with a limited number of questions. I ended it with many more.

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Preface However much I dislike the ideas, I love the frankness of the second opening sentence of Friedrich Hayek’s Road to Serfdom (1944), namely “This is a political book. I do not wish to disguise it by describing it […] by the more elegant and ambitious name of an essay in social philosophy”. My book is also a plea: to commit European universities to the best use of talents for social, cultural and economic progress. The plea is dressed up in analysis and with sketches of context. The evidence that European universities can do better is overwhelming – yet my plea is subjective and derived from the conviction that it is the duty of Europeans to build further on the European temple of liberties and their embedding in a society which is rich in all the aspects that contribute to the quality of life. This temple is not on forbidden, fenced-off territory but is open and part of a globalized world. What I hope to achieve with this book is to inform university staff, politicians, employers, employees and the educated community at large on the brakes we have seen put on our universities and on the alternatives before us. Releasing universities from these brakes will have to be achieved by politics, but the fermentation of a climate for change requires action of universities and their stakeholders. This book is based on or includes parts of papers that I have presented before. Among these are the papers found on www.maastrichtuniversity.nl: Korea, Seoul, Presentation for Global HR Forum 2008: The Financial Context for Innovating Universities to Prepare for Global Leadership; The Netherlands, Maastricht, GRE Board Meeting, 2008: EU Master Admission under Bologna, Setting the Stage; Japan, Tokyo, Presentation for UNU/UNESCO Conference, 2007: Higher Education’s Perfect Storm; Ireland, Dublin, Presentation to the Royal Irish Academy, 2007: Why European Higher Education Fails or How It Could Fly By Its Tails;

9

Greece, Athens, Keynote Address at OECD Ministerial Meeting, 2006: Scenarios for Higher Education, 2020 or When Will China Invade Iran?

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Executive Summary European universities are underexploited economically, culturally and socially in the pursuit of a stronger Europe. The context in which European universities operate needs to be altered urgently so that they can contribute to the European competitive position through economic innovation, increased social cohesion and a more vibrant cultural dynamism. The present position of Europe’s universities is something like a bronze Olympic medal: very well represented among the world’s top 200 universities, but almost absent in the top 50. Society’s feelings about universities are likewise lukewarm, sometimes ecstatic, also often critical on the ivory tower image or downright cynical on the waste of the “taxpayer’s money”. Europe has to aim to go for gold in a world competition with a strong US system of higher education and newly emerging runner-ups like China and India. The unbalanced demographics in the world – with a virtually constant supply of graduates in the developed West and a potentially fast increase in the number of graduates in developing countries, pose both new threats and new opportunities for European universities. Europe can cash in on the opportunities by innovating its higher education, taking into account the lesson learned on effective education for an international labour market and on the valorization of knowledge. But also the lesson on matching and the selection of students. The context of European universities needs to be changed to make them more successful: – The Bologna process has to be denationalized with European-wide accreditation and quality control. – The organization of universities should change from bureaucratic to innovative, and be like a private not-for-profit company to maximally release the energy and talent of the staff. – The finances need to be rebalanced so that the public budget cuts of the past decades can be met by private sources. The 2008/2009 economic crisis is an excellent opportunity for a paradigm shift all over Europe to promote excellence together with emancipation of the new Europeans in universities (never waste a good crisis). European universities, YES, they can do so much more for Europe.

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Table of Contents Executive Summary

11

List of Figures

15

List of Tables

17

List of Abbreviations

19

List of Country Abbreviations

23

Chapter 1 Introduction 1.1 A Chance 1.2 Europe or European Countries 1.3 European Universities

25 25 30 33

Chapter 2 The Looming Crisis 2.1 Europe in the Rankings 2.2 What Makes Universities Better? 2.3 European Universities Used to Be Top 2.4 Innovation and Competitiveness 2.5 Uneasiness 2.6 Conclusions Appendix 2.1 Research Expenditures by Sector (US, EU15)

37 37 48 53 56 62 65 68

Chapter 3 Challenges 3.1 Which Europe? 3.2 European Leadership 3.3 The Globalized Labour Market 3.4 Equality of Opportunity as an Economic Requirement 3.5 Universities Are Underexploited for Economic Growth 3.6 Conclusions Appendix 3.1 Article 149 of the Treaty Establishing the European Community

71 71 73 76 79 82 86

Chapter 4 The Battle for Talent: Europe has a Chance 4.1 Introduction 4.2 Europe’s Chance 4.2.1 Europe’s Demand and Supply of Graduates 4.2.2 The Worldwide Asymmetry in Demography 4.3 On Talent Migration

88 89 89 90 90 97 103 13

4.3.1 Deciding to Study Abroad 4.3.2 Intra-European Mobility 4.3.3 Europe and the World 4.4 Conclusions and Policy Proposals 4.4.1 Intra-European Mobility Revisited: A European Statute 4.4.2 Europe and the World Revisited Appendix 4.1 Foreign Students within the EU Appendix 4.2 Definitions of Regions according to the United Nations Population Division

103 106 114 123 123 124 127 132

Chapter 5 Stop the Financial Suffocation of European Universities 5.1 Ill Financed Universities 5.2 The Erosion of Public Finance 5.3 Equality of Opportunity and Beware of Too High Tuition Fees 5.4 Other Income 5.5 Formula Financing 5.6 Conclusions

133 133 134 147 152 154 155

Chapter 6 Give Innovation a Chance: The Context 6.1 The Context of a University 6.2 The Caterpillar and the Butterfly 6.2.1 The Oligarchic University 6.2.2 The Democratized University 6.2.3 The Bureaucratic University 6.2.4 The Professional University 6.3 The Bologna Process 6.4 Differentiation, Selection and Equity 6.5 Reward Learning about Learning 6.6 Conclusions

157 157 158 160 161 165 166 169 176 181 185

Chapter 7 The Future of European Universities: An Action Plan 7.1 A Coherent View is Needed 7.2 Elements of a Coherent View 7.3. Design for a Desired Future and an Action Plan for Reform

187 187 189 195

Bibliography

201

Index Persons General

215 215 219

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Chapter 1 Introduction 1.1 A Chance “The empires of the future will be empires of the mind”, said the European Winston Churchill in 1943 at the American top university Harvard. Could there have been a better way to capture a vision of an emerging knowledge society? Though oddly enough Churchill hardly took heed of his own words in his own country or in Europe, while Harvard University had already fully incorporated its emerging role as a leader in the international knowledge society. More than 67 years later, in 2010, Europe should reflect again on Churchill’s Harvard metaphor. It is not that Europe should seek new empires, but it also does not want to be overrun by the forces of globalization and to become marginalized in the process. European Heads of State were aware of the changing tides in 2000 in Lisbon and solemnly attested that they would get their countries to make Europe the most competitive region in the world by 2010, by means of an extensive knowledge infrastructure – an empire of the mind. For that purpose they formulated quantitative goals. One of them was that research expenditures per year would rise in each country to 3% of the gross domestic product (GDP) (of which 2% private and 1% public). Universities themselves did not get much attention at this Lisbon meeting, except for the somewhat mythical second quantitative goal of an increase in participation in higher education (HE) to 50% of the age group. I use the term “mythical” as there was no clue offered as to the source of the hidden talent or the required action (and finance) needed to achieve it. But overall the Lisbon declaration showed how strongly universities and research had been recognized as sources of socio-economic development in Europe. “Most competitive” was the way the Heads described a vibrant Europe, where young people with ambition, creativity and talent would feel welcome, where there is openness to new knowledge, to creativity, in the arts, in the sciences and in the economy, in a sustainable way so that the planet Earth can provide hospitality to the nine billion plus people who will inhabit it by 2050, and to the billions beyond. Almost a decade and one deep economic crisis later, the signatories should be called to accountability. In most of the European Union (EU) the Lisbon declaration has turned out to be no more than words. To be specific about European universities: they had and still have a chance to contribute to a vibrant continent with a thriving, sustainable economy. However, the past ten years and the Lisbon 25

declaration have not brought about the required change. The least one can say is that European universities are not (yet) in the position of being the most competitive in attracting talent. As Lambert and Butler (2006, p. 1) put it, “Europe’s universities, taken as a group, are failing to provide the intellectual and creative energy that is required to improve the continent’s poor economic performance. Too few of them are international centres of research excellence, attracting the best talent from around the world”. However, they are not (yet) in a crisis as the quote might suggest. Unfortunately, my public policy instinct tells me that this could be a problem in itself because a crisis would propel immediate action and change. As a group, European universities do “allright” or slightly less than “allright” leading to a political conclusion of not always so benign neglect and to indifference or sometimes a clear anti-university attitude among the population. The need to cut government budgets as a result of the mounting deficits (the effect of the 2008/2009 crisis) may actually be such a crisis-related opportunity for radical change, but could equally well be a new onslaught on the position of universities through public budget cutting without means for private compensation. How can it be that European universities are not placed on the shield by politicians nor the population, are not adored while the staff works so tirelessly, while salaries outside of universities – even in the public sector – are higher for the same talents? Where students (and their parents) are by and large happy, where research output per person working in research universities is among the highest in the world? The complaints are voiced alike by opinion leaders, politicians, employees: – There are too few peaks in the European university landscape (as the quote above of Lambert and Butler takes as point of departure). Therefore, we stand to lose top talent to other parts of the world. – Successful enrolment (admission plus graduation) of students from socially disadvantaged (often minority) groups is too low. – Overall drop-out is too high while drop-outs have wasted time – so it seems. – University research contributes too little to innovation. – University education is not sufficiently related to the demands from the labour market and in many EU countries the search period for the first job is exceedingly long. – While at least 50% of the students are female, the percentage of female full professors is often no more than 10 to 20%. – The attention to efficient and effective learning of students is virtually absent and innovations in learning methods occur too rarely. – (This selection of complaints is by no means exhaustive). This uneasiness is also visible in the clear underfinancing of university education – the result of a tremendous growth in publicly financed university education 26

Table 1.1

Change in Age Group 20-24 in the EU, India, Brazil, China and Turkey by Country (Potential Student Population)

Country/Region (alphabetically) Austria Belgium Bulgaria Cyprus Czech Republic Denmark Estonia Finland France Germany Greece Hungary Ireland Italy Latvia Lithuania Luxembourg Malta Netherlands Poland Portugal Romania Slovakia Slovenia Spain Sweden United Kingdom EU27 Brazil China India Turkey

Age Group 20-24 Change 2050/2005 -15.6% -9.0% -60.5% -1.5% -43.5% 16.0% -44.1% -9.9% -3.0% -22.7% -33.6% -36.2% -3.8% -19.0% -52.6% -50.8% 66.7% -32.3% 7.1% -60.3% -33.8% -55.3% -52.8% -48.2% -29.9% 13.7% 2.3% -23.3% -11.5% -21.2% 3.0% -12.7%

Country/Region (by rate of change) Luxembourg Denmark Sweden Netherlands India United Kingdom Cyprus France Ireland Belgium Finland Brazil Turkey Austria Italy China Germany EU27 Spain Malta Greece Portugal Hungary Czech Republic Estonia Slovenia Lithuania Latvia Slovakia Romania Poland Bulgaria

Age Group 20-24 Change 2050/2005 66.7% 16.0% 13.7% 7.1% 3.0% 2.3% -1.5% -3.0% -3.8% -9.0% -9.9% -11.5% -12.7% -15.6% -19.0% -21.2% -22.7% -23.3% -29.9% -32.3% -33.6% -33.8% -36.2% -43.5% -44.1% -48.2% -50.8% -52.6% -52.8% -55.3% -60.3% -60.5%

Source: United Nations Population Division (2008a)

which could not be met by increasing tax income or reallocation of budgets in a time in which budget deficits and taxation levels were reduced. At the same time Lambert and Butler (2006) see the underfinancing as the main cause for concern for European universities to spread their wings. That is one view. In another it is (besides financing) also a matter of governance and organization which have reduced the strength of European universities. Let it be clear that as far as one can assess these complaints, this feeling of uneasiness of society about its universities as anti-intellectualism might not be restricted to Europe, but is stronger in Europe than in other countries or regions (such as the US and East Asia). It can also be observed that it is not a new uneasi27

ness: early 20th century European visitors to the US observe time and again that US universities are more highly respected by the population at large than they are used to see in Europe (see e.g. Berkel, 1990, for a description of observations of Dutch scholars visiting the US). Presumably in other parts of the world, universities are better “tuned in” to society (a point to be further explored in Section 2.4). At least other societies see them more as delivery points of services, while the European taxpayer is often inclined to see the universities as part of the government bureaucracy. A vibrant Europe is a Europe with vibrant universities which have a better place and better recognition and appreciation than they have at the moment. Chapter 3 explores more at length the possibilities of universities and (university) research for providing intellectual, economic and social leadership. The time ahead is one with divergence in demography unparalleled in recent history. The share of the EU population in the world will decline between 2008 and 2050 according to UN projections by almost one third (from 7.5% to 5.2%) with the world population increasing from 6.5 billion to 9.1 billion (while the EU population decreases from 490 billion to 470 billion). The decades ahead will show decreasing cohorts of the traditional age group of 18 to 24 year olds seeking university education as is illustrated by Table 1.1. More of these youngsters will come from backgrounds in which university education is traditionally unknown (Ritzen, 2007a). The number of European youngsters in university education is as a result likely to decline despite the Lisbon goal of reaching a 50% participation rate. This goal is derived from participation realized in some European (see Table 1.3) and nonEuropean countries like Japan and Korea, ignoring the difference in homogeneity – which may well affect participation – between those countries and most of the European nations. Without a tremendous increase in participation the number of European students then is going to decline in the next decades. Unless a major shift occurs, Europe is going to lose students and as a result many universities may go into a downward spiral. Such a spiral can be observed in countries with a mature demography (like Japan where participation is already so high that further increases are unlikely) or at a demographic hiccup (a minus 1.1% in total students enrolled in higher education and a minus 1.4% in new entrants to universities in Spain in 20061). The formula financing of universities based on student numbers forces cutbacks in university expenditure when student numbers drop. Cutbacks can affect the working climate, the attractiveness for university staff, student satisfaction, and as a result, the reputation, making that place less likely to be chosen by prospective students, leading to the next

1. Source: Eurostat (2008b).

28

round of cutbacks. Depending on the willingness of governments to come to the rescue, some 5-10% might go broke, close and disappear. A shift is unlikely to occur in Europe in the participation of older students. Now in the US, the majority of Master students does not belong to the traditional age cohort of 18-24 year olds (in 2002 only half of the graduate students were between 25 and 342). The promise of a substantial role of European universities in life-long learning is however no more likely in the future than it is now since this would require a major change in attitudes for which we have not yet seen any indication. It is equally unlikely that more students may come from outside Europe unless major changes take place within the universities (as Chapter 4 argues). The very brightest of the European students are in the future as they are now, equally likely to continue to be “drained” to the US or other Anglo-Saxon countries, unless (continental) Europe provides a clear alternative. Ahead of us we can clearly see the crisis coming. A downward spiral due to demographics – very much in line with the general role demographics has played in the past in unsettling the routines and structures of society as Baumann (2003) has argued. This crisis may be spurred on by the relocation of the talent intensive parts of private industry, like laboratories, financial services and ICT services to those areas of the world which are still increasing in their abundance of talent, such as India and China. Gándara (2005) considered this scenario for the US the perfect storm, even while demographic conditions and the excellence of US universities compare favourably to those of Europe. Let it be clear that it is not demographics that cause the crisis: demographics are the catalyst for the crisis. The obvious and increasing underfinancing (Lambert and Butler, 2006) and the substantial institutional and organizational handicaps are likely to be the too short roots of the tree. When the demographic storm blows the tree is likely to fall. The Lisbon agreement of 2000 was an excellent step to choose for a more favourable destiny, mitigating or avoiding the pending demographic storm. Yet, as Odile Quintin (2006), Director General for Education and Culture of the European Commission, noted: Europe has not seriously attempted to implement this agreement. This book pleads for new steps, reviving “Lisbon” through a serious reform agenda (Chapter 7) and taking it further into creating a European system which is truly attractive for students from all over the world standing as symbol for a Europe of imagination, creativity, knowledge and social cohesion. Not as part of a zero sum game of competition worldwide but to contribute to a positive sum game of world development. The steps should include ways to end the underfi-

2. Source: Council of Graduate Schools (2008).

29

nancing (Chapter 5) while further developing the “innovative university” as part of the further organizational and institutional development of universities (Chapter 6).

1.2 Europe or European Countries We speak in this book about Europe in the way it has been defined by Ulrich Beck (2006) as a loosely knit combination of nation states which have in the past 50 years been able to turn a century long lasting rivalry between states into a peaceful cooperation driven by a common market, common economic policies, common citizenship and – since the Maastricht Treaty – a common currency (albeit not yet shared by all nations). Europe can indeed be taken as the unit of concern because there is more worldwide “between”-difference (between Europe and other parts of the world) than “within”-difference (between the European nations) in attitudes and values, but also in university systems and lastly, in demographics (where the looming crisis is catalysed by demographic development even though this development takes also place in other countries such as Japan and the US). The differences between university systems of the nation states within the continent are large (as the next section will argue). Yet, the differences compared with non-European countries (in North America, Asia, South America, Africa, and Australia) are far more pronounced in the following terms: – The diversity within the European systems is generally much smaller than elsewhere. – The history of European systems goes back to the 11th century while that of most other countries is more recent. – The enrolment history is also quite different, with the US leading in mass university enrolment in the 1950s, Europe following in the 1970s and subsequently countries like Japan and Korea even exceeding European enrolment rates in the 1990s. One common feature of Europe is its deeply rooted anti-elitist attitude which has translated into a disregard for diversity and a dislike for top talent. Virtually every European language has expressions for – Swimming with the tide or going with the tide, and – Acting out of character or being the odd one out. Still, the within-diversity is substantial as Table 1.2 shows: – The population size differs substantially between the countries of the EU with Germany being the “giant” but also with “dwarfs” like Luxembourg, Malta and Cyprus. Substantial differences can also be found in the demographic trends forecasted for the next fifty years. 30

Table 1.2

Diversity within Europe

Country

Austria Belgium Bulgaria Cyprus Czech Republic Denmark Estonia Finland France Germany Greece Hungary Ireland Italy Latvia Lithuania Luxembourg Malta Netherlands Poland Portugal Romania Slovakia Slovenia Spain Sweden United Kingdom EU-27

Population in 20051)

Income per Capita in 20052)

Globalization Rank 20053)

8.24 10.48 7.74 0.76 10.24 5.42 1.35 5.25 62.82 82.47 11.10 10.09 4.16 58.61 2.30 3.41 0.47 0.40 16.32 38.17 10.55 21.63 5.39 2.00 43.40 9.03 60.23 492.00

29,700 28,800 2,800 18,000 9,800 38,300 8,200 30,000 27,500 27,200 17,800 8,800 39,100 24,400 5,700 6,100 65,000 11,900 31,500 6,400 14,100 3,700 7,100 14,400 20,900 32,600 30,400 22,500

2 1 40 18 10 5 15 11 14 22 32 12 7 27 38 31 8 24 4 30 17 42 23 19 16 6 26

Europhile Index (Rank) in 20064) 34% (26) 65% (5) 53% (14a) 49% (19) 52% (15) 65% (6) 51% (16) 39% (24) 49% (17) 57% (9) 53% (14b) 49% (20) 77% (1) 56% (10) 37% (25) 59% (8) 72% (4) 44% (22) 74% (2) 56% (11) 47% (21) 62% (7) 55% (12) 54% (13) 72% (3) 49% (18) 42% (23)

Notes: 1) Population in million at 1st January of each year; Source: Eurostat (2008b). 2) GDP per capita in Euro per inhabitant at current prices; Source: Eurostat (2008a). 3) The KOF Index of Globalization includes 158 countries in total (The ranks are based on the position of the respective country among all 158 countries in 2005); Source: ETH Zurich (2008). 4) The index represents the percentage of people who think that the country’s membership in the EU is a good thing; rank of country among EU countries in brackets; Source: European Commission (2007).

– Per capita incomes are very different with Luxembourg in the lead while the newly accessed countries Bulgaria and Romania are the laggards with a per capita income of no more than 5% of that of Luxembourg. – The degree of inclusion of European countries in the global economy differs tremendously, with the smaller countries Belgium, Austria, the Netherlands and Denmark as frontrunners, whereas the new EU members Bulgaria, Latvia, Lithuania and Romania rank lower on the globalization index. This has not changed since 2000. However, the UK and export-champion Germany rank 31

surprisingly low, in a similar league as the Southern European countries and Slovenia and Slovakia. A general tendency between 2000 and 2006 is an increased degree of globalization in the newer EU countries and a decrease in the older Member States (ETH Zurich, 2008). – The table also shows overwhelming differences in the attachment which the different nations feel to Europe, the Europhile index, led by Ireland (the famous “no”-voter in 2007!), the Netherlands, Luxembourg and Spain. The Euro-sceptics are Austria, Finland and Latvia. The four leaders are the same as in 2000, only in different rank order (in 2000: Luxembourg with 79%, Ireland with 75%, Netherlands with 71%, and Spain with 63%). Austria and Finland were already quite Euro-sceptic in 2000 with only 38% and 39%, respectively, of the population saying that membership of the European Union is a good thing. Still, the extreme Euro-sceptic was the UK with 29% in 2000, followed by Sweden with 34%. The percentage of the population that says that membership of the EU is a good thing has increased in most old EU Member States between 2000 and 2006; only in the Southern European countries (Italy, Greece, Portugal) and Austria, it has decreased and in Finland remained the same (European Commission, 2001). This is the picture of diversity. Yet, when European countries decide on their cultural heritage, they notice the common identity, expressed by “composers like Mozart, Bach, Beethoven, Chopin, Schumann, Debussy and Händel, and artists like Picasso, Michelangelo, Bernini, Matisse, Rembrandt and Da Vinci”, according to Bevers (2008). He analyzed the final secondary-school examinations in the subjects music and fine arts in ten European countries, focusing on the European dimension. Indeed he finds a “double loyalty”: in every country the cultural canon is comprised of the own cultural heritage, and that is filled up with a European canon, for which a broad and striking agreement exists. If there were questions about the culture outside Europe they almost always dealt with American culture (Oosterbaan, 2008). Let it be clear that I do not want to imply by taking Europe as the unit of analysis that European universities should be part of the competencies of the EU, that their “chance” should be realized by action from “Brussels”. Such an implication would give rise to an ideological debate which is not likely to bring great prospects closer. So: where policy suggestions are made, they refer to suggestions for national policies on the assumption that national policies act in line with the principle of subsidiarity, meaning that whatever can be accomplished by national policies should be left there assuming that national policies are attuned to those of other EU countries but without transferring decision-making power to the EU.

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1.3 European Universities With very few exceptions (like the European University Institute in Florence or the small College of Bruges) European universities are national universities in countries belonging to the EU. They overwhelmingly harbour national students and teach by and large in the national language. A “European Statute” allowing universities to enrol (and be financed for) students based on supra-national legislation or supra-national agreements is yet to be developed (analogous to the European Company Statute). As a result, when we speak of European universities we mean the universities of the individual EU countries. I use the term universities broadly to include all institutions of higher education in the definition of the OECD (2007c) as “ISCED” levels 5 (A and B) and 6. Most EU countries distinguish between research universities and other institutes of higher learning without research or with limited applied research. Table 1.3

Participation in Universities in the EU (as Percentage of the Age Group 20-24)

Belgium Bulgaria Czech Republic Denmark Germany Estonia Ireland Greece Spain France Italy Cyprus Latvia Lithuania Luxembourg Hungary Malta Netherlands Austria Poland Portugal Romania Slovenia Slovakia Finland Sweden United Kingdom EU27

1998

2002

2006

n.a. 41.2 23.6 51.2 47.0 45.4 47.8 44.7 52.7 52.8 46.1 n.a. 43.1 39.3 7.5 29.9 n.a. 46.8 50.6 39.1 42.8 20.5 45.9 24.3 78.7 51.1 55.0 45.5

57.1 40.2 35.1 61.8 45.4 62.7 54.1 64.3 58.1 52.3 54.6 26.0 68.3 62.6 11.4 45.3 24.4 53.3 46.4 60.6 51.6 32.8 65.7 32.5 87.2 74.2 62.0 52.9

61.9 45.4 48.3 78.6 47.2 65.6 54.1 89.3 61.9 54.0 64.2 32.1 73.4 76.7 9.6 65.0 30.4 60.1 47.9 64.7 52.3 52.0 82.5 44.2 92.5 80.2 58.5 58.5

Source: Eurostat (2008b)

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The university systems are in many of the Western European countries “mature” in terms of participation of youngsters, while in many of the new EU countries participation is still quite low. Table 1.3 gives the participation rates. In the new EU countries participation may not be as high as those of the older EU countries or of Korea (almost 85% in 2007) and Japan (almost 43% in 1999 and 56% in 20063). The Heads of State of the EU decided in 2000 to formulate the Lisbon goal of an enrolment of 50% of the age group by 2010 (see Table 1.3, page 33). The university systems of the EU share the same history of the first universities established in Bologna (1088) and Paris (1150), followed by Oxford (1167), Cambridge (1209), Salamanca (1218), Montpellier (1220), Padua (1222), Naples (1224), Toulouse (1229), Prague (1348), Heidelberg (1386), and Louvain (1425) (see Compayré, 1893). In the Middle Ages these were tiny institutions – even if one considers that the population in European countries was less than one-fiftieth of the present population – with a participation rate of no more than 1.75%4 established as a corporation of teachers and students with broad support from the reigning royalty and the Pope (or one of the Popes or other Church dignitaries). The first students of the medieval universities were almost all clerics. Those who came from the middle class were mainly found at the faculty of arts while the wealthier students studied law or medicine. Students from the highest social backgrounds like “knightly descent or membership of the urban ‘upper class’ of ‘upper middle class’” (Rüegg and Ridder-Symoens, 2003, p. 200) were mainly specialized students in their twenties or thirties who aimed at an examination or even doctorate degree, that often allowed them to become teachers themselves afterwards. The students were wealthy, the university was well endowed and catered for an “international” student population (not only from the own region or country). An excellent and detailed account of the history of European universities is presented in the three volumes under the editorship of Walter Rüegg (2003, 2004) and Rüegg and Ridder-Symoens (2003). They show that equality of opportunity always has been part of the European legacy: “Poverty was no obstacle to admission, but in general no particular consideration was shown as far as the payment of fees was concerned. Those who set the fees in each case had to examine the ability or inability of the student to pay. The poorer students were urged to meet as far as they could the financial obligations connected with their matriculation. Strictly speaking, deferment of the payment of fees was to be allowed only […] until the

3. Students in higher education over the total population aged 20 to 24 (expressed as a percentage). Source: own computation based on UNESCO Institute for Statistics (2010) and United Nations Population Division (2008a) data for Korea; Source: Eurostat (2008b) for Japan. 4. The “Reichsfrequenz (matriculations within the Holy Roman Empire) between 1385 and 1505 reached a high point of 1.75 per cent yearly, despite a concurrent decline in the population growth” (Rüegg and Ridder-Symoens, 2003, p. 188). The Reichsfrequenz refers to the students matriculated at those universities that had registers listing the students.

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onset of a better fortune” (pp. 186-7). Basically there was already some sort of income-contingent “loan” system, at least informally! As far as career prospects are concerned, the accounts differ. While according to Rüegg and Ridder-Symoens (2003), having attended or graduated from university did not count as much as the status by birth, according to Rudy (1984), graduates from the first European universities had good chances in the clergy, the government and as lawyers and doctors, it seems. Although usually little is known about them, more is reported about some students due to “their later fame as ministers, civil servants, or leaders of their communities” (Maag, 2004, p. 102). Moreover, there was high demand for law students, for example, because “an education in Roman Law was the ordinary preparation for the career of the secular as well as of the ecclesiastical lawyer” (Rashdall, 1895, p. 112). The common history got a bifurcation in the 19th century with the writings of Cardinal Newman (1858) in Ireland (then part of the UK) and Wilhelm von Humboldt (1793) in Germany. Both became the godfathers of a new type of university. The Humboldtian research university was geared towards producing social leadership. It is more known for the means by which von Humboldt succeeded to produce social leadership than for the goal: freedom of research and teaching for the individual professor instead of research and teaching directed by and to be accounted for by the principal of the university (King or Church). Cardinal Newman (1858), in the same vein argued for an independence of research and teaching from the principal, yet, considered the community of the college to be more important than the individual chair. But while even the ideas were so alike the university development in Germany and the UK went into different directions: Germany along a strict model of “all universities should be the same” while the UK and Ireland allowed differentiation between universities including selectivity of students. When one compares the university systems in the EU one can distinguish: – The UK and Ireland with a highly differentiated and selective system, allowing (in the UK) for substantial tuition fees. In Section 2.1 (Europe in the Rankings) the UK system comes out as a shining example – also in the sense of providing competition for the US in the top 20, although on the basis of universities among the top 200 divided by population the (non-selective) systems of the Netherlands and Norway are “superior”. – The systems of the “Big Four” of the old EU: Germany, France, Italy and Spain without differentiation or selectivity, and without tuition fees in research universities. Differentiation does exist in Germany between the Fachhochschulen (polytechnic institutes) and the research universities, while in France the Grandes Écoles are differentiated from the research universities. The Big Four are underperformers, as Section 2.1 on the rankings shows. – The research universities of the small seven of Western Europe (Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, the Netherlands, Norway and Sweden) have gener35

ally enjoyed substantial reform in the past decades. Although the research universities are undifferentiated and tuition fees are low, these research universities are doing reasonably well. – The university system in the newly accessed countries which generally have the serious handicap of the transition from the Soviet Era to the New Times including too limited resources. A very similar distinction is used when describing Europe by Alesina and Giavazzi (2006), in their plea for urgent reform in a wide range of aspects of the European economic system (among these aspects, higher education). The OECD has provided a service to analyze the university systems of its member countries (and sometimes also non-member countries). OECD (2008c)5 provides an overview of the results of these studies for the 24 participating countries, including the following list of EU countries: Belgium (Flemish Community), the Czech Republic, Estonia, Finland, France, Greece, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, and the United Kingdom. Generally, governments put more and more emphasis on tertiary education because it is recognized as benefitting the social and economic development. Of course, the countries differ with respect to their tertiary education policy but some common trends can be identified. In all countries, the higher education sector has grown and now includes different types of students. Increasingly, more females and also more mature people attend tertiary education institutions, and the student population is more mixed “in terms of socio-economic background, ethnicity and previous education” (OECD, 2008c, p. 3). Along with this expansion came diversification and new funding arrangements. In all countries, the importance of accountability and performance, i.e. quality assurance, and of fostering international networks and collaboration, both for teaching and research, have been stressed. The best thing which has happened to European universities in the past decades is the Bologna agreement: 46 European nations are creating a similar structure (the Bachelor-Master structure) for their universities. The potential impact of this move is, indeed, the creation of a university space in which students can more easily study outside of the borders of their own country. Such a space might create the kind of competition-tide between universities which lifts all boats. In Section 6.4 the present implementation of “Bologna” is discussed as a glass half empty. In any case, Bologna is not a sufficient condition for realizing the chance for European universities to serve their societies in line with the demands of a vibrant continent.

5. See Santiago et al. (2008), Vol. 1-3, for the detailed reports.

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