Transcript From ‘Not quite falling out of the sky’ to Europe’s

From ‘Not quite falling out of the sky’
to Europe’s flagship programme for
worldwide academic cooperation:
the emergence and significance of
Erasmus Mundus
Roger Dale
University of Bristol
Presentation to 2012 LLAKES Conference, 19 October
Erasmus Mundus in LLAKES
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Higher Education
Non-UK (though UK universities involved)
European policy (but not Bologna-related)
Sui generis
Consequences for Learning and Life Chances
Theoretical and methodological challenge
What is it? Erasmus Mundus 2004-8
Erasmus Mundus is a co-operation and mobility programme in the field
of higher education intended to promote the European Union as a
centre of excellence in learning around the world. It aims to support the
development of top-quality European Masters Courses and to enhance
the visibility and attractiveness of European higher education in third
countries;… the improvement the quality of higher education in Europe,
and the promotion of intercultural understanding through co-operation
with third countries.
The specific aims of the programme are to: promote quality and
excellence in European higher education; encourage the incoming
mobility of third-country graduate students and scholars; foster
structured co-operation with third-country higher education
institutions; and improve the profile, visibility and accessibility of
European higher education in the world.
Action 1 - Erasmus Mundus Masters Courses, comprising integrated
courses at masters level offered by at least three universities in three
different European countries;
Outline of Argument
Section 1 sets out the relatively wider and relatively narrower
contexts from which Erasmus Mundus emerged, and provides a
more detailed account of the processes through which the form
and detail of the programme were assembled, with a particular
emphasis on the logic of intervention it adopted. Based on process
tracing method, via document analysis and interviews with key
actors
Section 2 presents briefly details of the content and
implementation of the programme, noting how they both shift and
extend the parameters of European higher education.
Section 3 attempts a brief account of what EM ‘means’,
theoretically and politically; a sui generis example of EC agenda
amplification
Contexts of Emergence of EM; what made
it desirable?
‘the context of context’ generated two overlapping but distinct
responses at the European level that are directly relevant to
this paper.
At the level of the Commission, they led to the programme for
global competitiveness that was summarized in the Lisbon
agenda—and note significance (via Prodi’s involvement) of
9/11/2001
In the HE sector, it raised concerns about the implications of
the commercialization of HE, European HE’s global
attractiveness and its competitiveness in terms of ability to
contribute to economic growth. Associated with this, Europe’s
growing involvement in inter-regional activities also took in the
higher education sector (which was to be crucial to the
development of EM)
Contexts of Emergence of EM; What made
it possible? 1 Immediate context of
Sorbonne, Lisbon, Bologna
Sorbonne--facilitate academic mobility within and to Europe to
enhance its global attractiveness and especially in competition
with the USA; to increase Europe’s share of trade in HE; to
respond to the increasing need for mobility, especially in view of
the proliferation and incompatibility of European HE
qualifications; deepen the European dimension.
Lisbon; direct relationship between Lisbon Agenda and Education
Bologna –EM never mentioned, but close adherence to action
lines, to point where ‘EM represented the fullest implementation
of the Bologna mechanisms’ (informant interview).
Contexts of Emergence of EM; What made
it possible? 2 The ERASMUS context
Provided a known ‘brand’
Provided a role for the EC, via a level of cooperation that only
it could enable and coordinate.
Set a precedent for the mechanism of incentive funding to
stimulate student exchanges, (through which, in the case of
Erasmus) the Community [was enabled to] encourage
individual academics to set up networks.’ (Corbett, 2004, 11:
emphasis added)
Insisted on academic recognition for the diplomas involved
and for periods of study spent abroad
Contexts of Emergence of EM; What
made it possible? 3 The ‘opportunity
structure’ available within DGEAC
The precise form it took is more appropriately seen as a
supply led political intervention, that emerged from this
particular conjuncture of events and discourses around the
turn of the millennium; it might be seen as a form of policy
entrepreneurship on the part of the European Commission,
but with a very strategic set of objectives.
Logic of Intervention; Clear, if broad, problematisation;
effectively non-existent conception of ‘solution’; but most
driven by, and characterised by its mechanisms
Strong support from DGEAC (Commissioner), ACA, EUA (cf.
‘in house’ epistemic community)
So, while ‘it didn’t quite fall from the sky’, it was rather like
that’ (Senior DGEAC official).
Contexts of Emergence of EM; What
made it possible? 4 Development
Funding
Very significantly, the programme was launched jointly by
the Commissioner for Education, Viviane Reding, and the
Commissioner for External Relations, Chris Patten (as well as
by European Commissioner Prodi).
Patten’s support took more concrete form in the shape of
money earmarked by DG RELEX for projects in India and
China
This then became the basis of the regional funding
‘windows’ that greatly supplemented DGEAC funding of EM;
becomes element of EU ‘region to region’ diplomacy
Examples of key mechanisms
Basic Structure; Scholarships to 3rd country students
to follow 2 yr joint Masters degrees involving study in
a consortium of three EU Universities, who created
and administered the courses
Courses selected by DGEAC, administered by EACEA
Funding goes directly to students; 15K Euros to
consortium for administration
Significant EU level intervention via imposition of joint
degrees, and emergence of fees as default
assumption
Contractual agreement is between Commission and
Consortium (of 3 Universities from different
countries); minimal (formal) national government
involvement
Conclusions 1
It addresses the objective of enhancing the attractiveness of
Europe’s HE offer in very particular ways, demonstrating, or
performing, those qualities rather than aspiring to them as policy
goals.
It also sees them in a more pan-European way, rather than as the
outcome of collected national or institutional qualities.
Its benefits are achieved at European (and institutional) levels. On
the whole, they do not accrue mostly to MS, except perhaps in the
case of brain drain (fears of which may have been exagerrated),
though there is little direct reference to economic benefits to
Europe.
Instead, various forms of the ‘attractiveness’ of Europe are
promoted, particularly in respect of the potential for cultural
diplomacy
Conclusions 2
The network form through which EM works, may go better with the
grain of academic life as conceived outside the major reorganisation
and reorientation schemes envisaged by Bologna and Lisbon
respectively
Its forms and processes do not follow closely the methods employed in
other EU educational programmes, such as the OMC model, for
instance, or indeed the Bologna Process, except in so far as some
Bologna mechanisms are employed to enable realisation of the joint
Masters mode
EM does not so much occupy a ‘grey zone between national legal
frameworks and European level integration ambitions’, Gornitzka (2008,
32), as display a form of ‘creeping competence’ (Pollack). It
borrows/assumes/derives its assumption of competence, in part from
the original Erasmus programme, and applies that competence in a
governance space it is able to construct, and occupy, itself