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In this presentation, we offer a descriptive and analytical account of the impact of the “key pillar of the European Education Area” –theEuropean Universities initiative--on the European higher education sector inlight of the long-standing debate about horizontal diversity and vertical differentiation of higher education. We note that the effects of the current policy discourses of support for institutional diversity are hard to assess at this early stage. We suggest that it can be observed already, however, that the alliance formation in the framework of the initiative activated deep sociological mechanisms of hierarchisation, leading to the creation of networks of alike institutions, establishing aprestige hierarchy of European higher education institutions–albeit not a new one. Specifically, we argue that the global level stratification hierarchy cast by rankings influences both the participation of individual institutions and the formation/structure of the alliances within the initiative. However, we show empirically that some of the distinctive policy design measures, namely the requirement for broad geographical coverage and generically framed rules for participation, have also generated opportunities for involvement of the less prestigious (according to the global rankings) higher education institutions in selected alliances, thus broadening the scope of the initiative beyond the core of top-reputed research universities. We suggest that these observations may have important implications for how the intended extension of the initiative mechanism may be implemented and the effects on the overall structure of European higher education. Thomas Heinze,University of Wuppertal, has been involved as discussant.

The11th RISIS Policymakers Sessiontook placeon13 Junein an online format (2– 5 pm CEST) and wasintroduced byYann-Maël Bideau, Policy officer atEuropean Commission. The European University Initiative, promoted by theEuropean Commissionhas ignited collaborations and alliances across all European countries. The goal of the 11 Policymakers’ session is to discuss the evolution of the Initiative based on new evidence coming fromRISIS ETER Dataset.ETER, the European Tertiary Education Register is a systematic and updated collection of official microdata on all higher education institutions in Europe supported by the Commission. ETER data will be used to characterize the Alliances created under the Initiative and to discuss the potential for the long term evolution of the European Higher Education Area. The meeting was organized in two session enriched by two roundtables that sawthe participation of the most representatives of European Academic universe:Session OneEmpirical evidence on the European University Initiativeillustrated byAndrea Bonaccorsi,University of Pisa, andSession TwoentitledMapping the European Universitywith the contribution ofMarco Cavallaro and Agata Lambrechts, USI. &nbsp

The aim of this study was to examine how institutional barriers arising from policy decisions influence the level of participation of third-party countries in European Framework Programs (EU-FPs). To achieve this, we contrasted the effect of EU funding restrictions following Switzerland’s 2014 reclassification as a “third country” in Horizon 2020, and the political uncertainties resulting from the 2016 Brexit vote in the United Kingdom (UK). We compared the participation patterns of Swiss and UK higher education institutions (HEIs) with control groups of similar European HEIs over time and, complementarily, analyzed changes in the participation of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Our results showed that the Brexit-induced uncertainty had stronger negative effects than the Swiss reclassification, which was, however, characterized by effective EU funding restrictions. In both cases, the negative impact of institutional barriers was stronger for the more central HEIs in EU-FP networks. These results suggest that the effect of institutional barriers is closely linked to consortium building mechanisms, where research collaboration requires stability and projection over the long term. Regarding individual grants, the impact was stronger for Marie Skłodowska-Curie actions than for European Research Council grants, suggesting that a researcher’s mobility is affected by political uncertainties. Finally, in the UK case, we observed a steep decrease in the participation of SMEs. Based on these results, we suggest that a stable framework of participation and a clear ruling on relationships with the EU for what concerns people’s mobility and economic relationships are key to fostering the participation of third-party countries. Full paper : https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs11192-020-03810-0 Luke Georghiou, University of Manchester has been involved as discussant., The presentation is based on the paper: Cavallaro, M., Lepori, B. Institutional barriers to participation in EU framework programs: contrasting the Swiss and UK cases. Scientometrics (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-020-03810-0