Higher education in Europe
Europe has around 4 000 higher education institutions, with over 19 million students and 1.5 million staff. Some European universities are among the best in the world, but, overall, the potential of European higher education systems is not being fully realised. Not enough young people go to university, curricula are not always relevant to the needs of the labour market and institutions often lack the management tools and funding to match their ambitions.
National governments are responsible for their education and training systems and individual higher education institutions organise their own programmes and activities. However, the challenges facing higher education are similar across the EU and there are clear advantages in working together.
The role of the European Commission is to support national efforts. This is done in the following ways:
- By working closely with policy-makers from Member States to help them develop their higher education policies. The Commission has just published a new modernisation agenda for European higher education systems, identifying priority reform areas for action. Read more about the modernisation agenda.
- The Commission actively supports the Bologna Process, the inter-governmental process which promotes reforms in higher education with 47 countries, leading to establishing a 'European Higher Education Area'.
- By encouraging the exchange of examples of good policy practice between different countries – in particular, it gathers together a group of national experts – the 'thematic working group' on the modernisation of higher education – to share experiences and look at common challenges.
- The Erasmus Programme funds around 200 000 students every year to study or train abroad, along with other projects to increase co-operation between higher education institutions and other relevant institutions.
- There are a number of European programmes to promote co-operation in higher education with countries beyond the EU, including Tempus and Erasmus Mundus. Read more about these external co-operation initiatives in higher education.
- The Commission launches studies on specific areas relevant to higher education policy by gathering, analysing and sharing information on the state of play across Europe. Find EU studies and research on higher education.
More information
- Summaries of EU legislation/initiatives relevant to higher education:
- Modernising universities
- Reform of universities in the framework of the EU2020 Strategy and the Education and Training 2020 initiatives
- The role of universities in the Europe of knowledge
- The Bologna Process: make higher education systems in Europe converge
- Quality of higher education
