{"id":3558,"date":"2026-05-12T13:00:08","date_gmt":"2026-05-12T13:00:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/unite.pwr.edu.pl\/?p=3558"},"modified":"2026-05-12T13:00:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-12T13:00:08","slug":"europes-competitiveness-requires-strong-universities","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/unite.pwr.edu.pl\/en\/europes-competitiveness-requires-strong-universities\/","title":{"rendered":"Europe&#8217;s Competitiveness Requires Strong Universities"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"mb-4 row\">\n<div class=\"col-lg-6 col-md-12\">\n<p class=\"description\"><strong>The Unite! Executive Board issues a statement calling for retention of references to Higher Education and European Universities Alliances in the European Competitiveness Fund (ECF) regulation.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>The<strong>\u00a0Unite! University Alliance\u00a0<\/strong>urges Members of the European Parliament to reconsider the proposed amendments to the European Competitiveness Fund (ECF) regulation currently under discussion in the European Parliament\u2019s ITRE Committee.<\/p>\n<p>The amendments currently under discussion in the ITRE Committee \u2014 notably the shortening of Recital 21 and the deletion of Article 30 \u2014 would effectively remove all explicit references to\u00a0<strong>higher education institutions<\/strong>\u00a0and\u00a0<strong>European Universities alliances<\/strong>. This would exclude European Universities alliances from future eligibility for strategic investments, despite being central actors in strengthening the\u00a0<strong>European Education Area, the European Higher Education Area and the European Research Area<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>Eliminating references to higher education from the ECF regulation would:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Reduce Europe\u2019s capacity to respond to critical skills shortages<\/strong>, highlighted in the Letta report and Draghi report\u2013 with the European Universities alliances providing a unique position to deliver highly advanced training and education at large scales.<\/li>\n<li>Weaken the connection between\u00a0<strong>industrial investment and Europe\u2019s talent and innovation ecosystems<\/strong>, (also critically stated in the Draghi report,) \u2013 as European Universities alliances constitute innovation hubs linking Higher Education Institutions to their surrounding regional ecosystems: municipalities, SMEs, large companies, start-ups, NGOs, schools, citizens, and civic actors.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Increase pressure on the Erasmus+ budget<\/strong>, at a moment when the programme already faces declining higher education allocations.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Consequently, these factors would\u00a0<strong>seriously weaken Europe\u2019s capacity to develop the skills, talent and innovation ecosystems required to remain globally competitiv<\/strong><strong>e<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>We therefore strongly urge Members of the European Parliament to:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Retain Recital 21 and its reference to university Alliances<\/strong>, thereby ensuring that skills development, higher education and academia-business cooperation remain recognised as essential components of Europe\u2019s competitiveness.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Preserve Article 30 and its reference to higher educatio<\/strong><strong>n<\/strong>, maintaining the legal basis for structured cooperation between higher education, research institutions and industry.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>European Universities alliances represent one of the EU\u2019s most successful instruments for deep institutional transformation, cross-border collaboration, talent development, and accelerated commercialisation of research outputs. Excluding them from the ECF regulation would be a strategic setback at a moment when Europe must strengthen\u2014not dilute\u2014its investment in knowledge skills and innovation.<\/p>\n<p>We urge policymakers to safeguard Europe\u2019s long-term competitiveness by ensuring that higher education and European Universities alliances remain explicitly included in the ECF regulation.<\/p>\n<div class=\"d-flex flex-column mb-0 me-auto\">\n<h2 class=\"fw-bold h5\">Download the official Statement by Unite! Executive Board <a href=\"https:\/\/unite.pwr.edu.pl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Statement-by-Unite-Executive-Board_ECF_EUI_11052026.pdf\">here<\/a><\/h2>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Unite! Executive Board issues a statement calling for retention of references to Higher Education and European Universities Alliances in the European Competitiveness Fund (ECF) regulation. The\u00a0Unite! University Alliance\u00a0urges Members of the European Parliament to reconsider the proposed amendments to the European Competitiveness Fund (ECF) regulation currently under discussion in the European Parliament\u2019s ITRE Committee. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3561,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3558","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/unite.pwr.edu.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3558","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/unite.pwr.edu.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/unite.pwr.edu.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unite.pwr.edu.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unite.pwr.edu.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3558"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/unite.pwr.edu.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3558\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3563,"href":"https:\/\/unite.pwr.edu.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3558\/revisions\/3563"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unite.pwr.edu.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3561"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/unite.pwr.edu.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3558"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unite.pwr.edu.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3558"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unite.pwr.edu.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3558"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}