European universities have a chance!
Dr. J.M.M. Ritzen
Conference Leading Russian Universities within the context of European tendencies of high
school development, Moscow, June 28, 2011
Challenge for Europe
• Vibrant continent
• Attractive for talent
Requires vibrant universities which
attract talent world wide
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Context of Europe
• Slow economic growth (crisis)
• Ageing and only 6% of world
population in 2030
• Cohesion contested with strong
linguistic barriers
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Context of Europe
• Exemplified: growth
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European Universities Challenge
• Contribute to growth
• Contribute to demography (brain
circulation)
• Contribute to sustainability
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European Universities Performance
The Public Eye
• Too few peaks in the European university landscape, losing top
talent to the rest of the world
• Succesful enrolment of students from socially disadvantaged
groups is too low
• Overall drop-out rates are too high
• University research contributes too little to innovation
• University education is not sufficiently related to the demands
of the labour market
• Percentage of female full professors is often no more than 10
to 20% on average
• The attention for efficient and effective learning of students is
virtually absent and innovations in learning methods occur too
rarely
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European universities
Performance
International Ranking
• Underrepresented in top 50 (UK as exception)
• As a whole underrepresented in top 200, with
exceptions: UK, Netherlands, Switserland, Norway,
Sweden, Denmark, Finland
limited attraction for non EU-students
brain drain to US
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Performance: European universities are
national while we need globalized leadership
• Globalized leadership: the ability to function effectively on
the international labour market in advanced positions where
strategic decisions are taken in the private and in the public
sector.
• Universities are not providing the basis for a strong and
viable Europe, in a cultural, social and
economic sense.
• Nationalness of university systems versus
internationalisation efforts of European
universities and globalised labour market
of its alumni
• National markets  less competition 
less innovation  less excellence.
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Demography:
the graduate supply-demand gap
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Brain circulation as a solution
• Attract foreign talent
• European track record:
reasonable (22% of all foreign students,
exclusive at internal EU migration)
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A European HE space
• To create European citizen
• International leadership
• Intra European mobility of 20% (?)
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HE space implies
• Same legislation
• Same finance
• Same accreditation
• Same quality control
Erasmus  Bologna
Erasmus Mundus 
o European Statute?
o EU compensation for net inflow of foreign EU students?
P.S. Bologna hijacked by nation states
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Some observations on funding
• EU University education is seriously underfunded
• From ’75-’05 expenditure per student halved
• Limited compensation via tuition fees or private
funding
• No tradition of philanthropy. In US 0.5 trillion USD.
• US spend 2.6 times more per student
Recall: there is a simple direct relationship between
money and performance
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Finance
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Europe needs to take its tuition fee
phobia to the therapist and start
practising tuition fee policies and social
loan systems.
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Governance
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“Time has come for creating a differentiated world
class system of higher education within the context of
the European Higher Education and Research Area.”
(Manifesto Empower European Universities)
Four ingredients:
- Autonomy
- Diversity
- Internationalization
- Funding
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A difficult political
process
• Distance between the
informed opinion of experts
and the instinctive feelings of
society
• Politics worked alone for decades: now we need involvement of
stakeholders
• The Bologna process fell into the trap of nationalness
• No political movements, NGOs or pressure groups to advance
the notion of bringing education under the wings of the
European Union
• EEU: Bringing stakeholders on board
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The garden of Europe:
Diverse, international,
empowered and thoughtfully
nourished universities
in an open space
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