European Higher Education in the World
The key objectives of the opinion are:
- Support the proposed measures at EU and MS level for developing internationalisation strategies and progressing towards the Europe 2020 headline targets in higher education;
- Highlight the key role of LRAs in education and their value added as a player and an interface between the world of learning and the world of work;
- Express CoR interest in continuing to work with the European Commission and other partners in the field, covering all areas where LRAs have specific responsibilities, including, but not limited to regional development, establishing international strategic partnerships involving business and higher education, develop language skills, particularly local languages;
- Ensure that LRAs continue to play a vital role in implementing and (re)designing the proposed reforms and measures.
The CoR opinion had an impact on both the Council and the European Commission:
The relevant Council conclusions refer to European linguistic diversity as a great advantage for education and, more importantly, for the CoR, also ask to to promote digital learning in order to guarantee that students who are not taking part in mobility programmes (e.g. from peripheral areas) can also participate and are able to develop other skills.
The European Commission acted on a major point outlined in the CoR opinion, by publishing a ‘call for twinning’ on 2 July 2014, as part of the Horizon2020 programme. This addressed specific challenges relating to networking gaps and disparities between research institutions in low performing Member States and regions and their internationally-renowned EU counterparts. Similar measures are called for in the CoR Opinion.
https://cor.europa.eu/en/our-work/Pages/OpinionTimeline.aspx?opId=CDR-5961-2013