Handbook of European Associations in Higher Education a Practical Guide to Academic Networks in Europe and Beyond

Cover ACA-Handbook of .qxd 30.01.03 11:38 Seite 1 Bernd Wächter Bernd Wächter Handbook of European Associations in Higher Education A Practical Guide to Academic Networks in Europe and Beyond Over the past 15 years, European cooperation in higher education has increased dramatically. In the same period, a large number of academic associations have come into being. A few insiders are familiar with their names, but hardly anyone knows what they actually do. What is their history? What are their aims, their main activities, their publications and their most noteworthy projects? How are they governed? Where can they be contacted? This publication answers these and many other related ques- tions. It attempts to shed light on the “inner workings” of the 37 most important academic networks in Europe in the form of standardised portraits. The book also contains short profiles of important higher education associations from outside Europe, as well as a “postscript” analysis ACA Papers on Lemmens containing a short typology and history of Euro- Handbook of European Associations in Higher Education International Cooperation in Education pean networks in the tertiary sector. ISBN 3-932306-37-6 Bernd Wächter HANDBOOK OF EUROPEAN ASSOCIATIONS IN HIGHER EDUCATION ACA Papers on International Cooperation in Education Bernd Wächter HANDBOOK OF EUROPEAN ASSOCIATIONS IN HIGHER EDUCATION A Practical Guide to Academic Networks in Europe and Beyond Supported by The European Commission, Directorate General Education and Culture Die Deutsche Bibliothek – CIP-Einheitsaufnahme Handbook of European Associations in Higher Education / A Practical Guide to Academic Networks in Europe and Beyond / Bernd Wächter – Bonn: Lemmens Verlags- & Mediengesellschaft, 2000 (ACA Papers on International Cooperation in Education) NE: ACA Papers © Copyright 2000 Lemmens Verlags- & Mediengesellschaft mbH, Bonn Alle Rechte vorbehalten Anschrift des Verlages Königswinterer Straße 95 D-53 227 Bonn Telefon: + 49 228 42 13 70 Telefax: + 49 228 42 13 729 E-mail: [email protected] Internet: http://www.lemmens.de Umschlaggestaltung: Christian Padberg, Bonn Gesamtherstellung: Gesellschaft für Druckabwicklung, Bad Honnef ISBN 3-932306-37-6 4 CONTENTS Contents Introduction . 7 Portraits of European Associations in Higher Education . 11 Academic Cooperation Association (ACA) . 13 Association des Etats Généraux des Etudiants de l’Europe (AEGEE-Europe) . 18 Association for Teacher Education in Europe (ATEE) . 22 Association of European Universities (CRE). 26 Coimbra Group . 32 Community of European Management Schools (CEMS). 37 Compostela Group of Universities (CGU) . 40 Confederation of European Union Rectors’ Conferences . 44 Conference of Baltic University Rectors (CBUR). 48 Conference of European Schools for Advanced Engineering Education and Research (CESAER) . 50 Consortium Linking Universities of Science and Technology for Education and Research (CLUSTER) . 54 Det Nordiska Universitetsadministratörssamarbetet / The Nordic Association of University Administrators (NUAS) . 57 Erasmus Student Network (ESN) . 61 European Association for Institutional Research (EAIR) . 64 European Association for International Education (EAIE) . 67 European Association for the Education of Adults (EAEA) . 71 European Association of Distance Teaching Universities (EADTU) . 74 European Association of Institutions in Higher Education (EURASHE). 77 European Centre for Strategic Manangement of Universities (ESMU) . 81 European Consortium of Innovative Universities (ECIU) . 84 5 CONTENTS European Distance Education Network (EDEN) . 88 European Educational Research Association (EERA). 93 European Foundation for Management Development (EFMD) . 96 European Language Council /Conseil Européen pour les Langues (ELC/CEL). 101 European League of Institutes of the Arts (ELIA) . 106 European Science Foundation (ESF) . 110 European Universities Continuing Education Network (EUCEN) . 115 European Universities Information and Public Relations Officers (EUPRIO) . 118 Fédération des Universités Catholiques Européennes (FUCE) . 120 Fédération Européenne d’Associations Nationales d’Ingénieurs (FEANI) . 123 Forum Européen de l’Orientation Académique / European Forum for Student Guidance (FEDORA) . 126 Network of Universities from the Capitals of Europe (UNICA) . 129 Network of Universities of Southeastern Europe (NET/U/SEE) . 133 Rectors’ Conference of Alps-Adriatic Universities . 136 Santander Group (SG). 139 Société Européenne pour la Formation des Ingénieurs (SEFI) . 142 Utrecht Network. 147 Profiles of International Associations in Higher Education . 151 Postscript: Typology, History and Activities of European Associations in Higher Education . 169 6 INTRODUCTION Introduction European cooperation of universities and other types of higher education institutions has become a standard feature of academic life on our continent. But this has not always been so, or, at any rate not to the extent it is today. As a consequence of enhanced exchange and cooperation among Europe’s aca- demia, the number of networks, groupings and consortia in Europe also went up markedly since the mid-1980s. I developed an acute interest in the life and activities of these organisms already in the early 1990s, and, in the years bet- ween 1995 and 1997, I published a series of some 15 articles in the Deutsche Universitäts-Zeitung (DUZ) on those among them whom I thought most important. I considered myself lucky that I had found an editorial team sym- pathetic to my strange whim. But I never expected that the essays would meet with anything but very mild interest. To my surprise, the response was sub- stantial, and, what is more, overwhelmingly positive. From this day onwards, I have entertained the thought of coming up one day with a more systematic presentation of European higher education associations, in a language more widely spoken and understood than German and, hopefully, for a wider audience. It took some years for the thought to transform into the real product. A European Union grant, from the “complementary measures” of the SOCRA- TES programme, paved the way financially. The support of the Academic Cooperation Association (ACA), one of the organisations included in the handbook and moreover the one of which I am now the Director, was another conditio since qua non. The most important piece of midwifery, however, was the help of the associations concerned, through the provision of information on themselves. This Handbook consists of three parts. The first, and by far the most important one, is the collection of “portraits” of the 37 associations that were finally selected for inclusion in the publication. All portraits are designed in the same structure, for easy identification of key issues, and for reasons of comparabi- lity. Besides providing information of a technical sort, such as on contact details and further information sources, legal personality, governance, chief executive officers and presidents, the year of foundation and the last budget available, the texts aim to yield an insight into the “inner life” of the organisations, under the headings “history”, “aims”, “standard activities”, “projects and initiatives”, “regular events” and “publications”. In other words: they are to give the reader a concise but full picture of what the particular association is about. If the reader feels that he or she is not getting just this, then I have failed. A second, and much shorter section, is made up of an “assortment” of simi- lar association with a world-wide membership, or of parallel organisms from other continents. The term “assortment” is chosen deliberately. Some thorough fieldwork was undertaken in order to establish the corpus of European associations, and, as a consequence, I can entertain the hope that readers will, by and large, find my choice not too arbitrary. The international 7 INTRODUCTION section simply consists of those organisations which I already knew, or such on whom I found cross-references when researching their European counter- parts. Moreover, the information provided in the short “profiles” of these networks and consortia is much more limited. The profiles contain the contact details, the names of the CEOs and presidents, as well as a summary presentation of aims, activities and the history of each organisation. A third and last section of this Handbook, the “postscript”, is an attempt to systematise the information collected and presented. The essay tackles this goal by scrutinising three aspects, namely the typology, the history and the activities of European higher education associations. I admitted to a less than systematic approach in “assorting” the associations in the international section of this publication. But what were the guiding prin- ciples for the selection of European associations? The first criterion applied was that only associations with a membership related to higher education would be eligible. In practical terms, “related to higher education” means o groupings of universities and other higher education institutions themselves; o networks of individuals belonging to the above institutions (academics, administrators, students), or; o European “umbrellas” of national academic associations (associations of associations). Some of these three groups admit as members, next to those tertiary education actors, also “stakeholders” from outside of higher education. The demar- cation line for inclusion or exclusion in these cases was that the higher education-related part

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