There is no tailored European legal instrument for higher education institutions to overcome obstacles in transnational cooperation, while there are many expectations for joint activities at the European level. Therefore, a dedicated instrument must be designed. The ESEU-project, advising on a European Status for ECIU University (ESEU), published a roadmap on next steps for such an instrument.
An experimental space to pilot recommendations and pave the way forward is needed. The current Erasmus+ policy experimentation pilots on a European legal status, that run until Spring 2024, of which ESEU is one, are a good start. But the experimentation space should not end after this pilot phase of only 12 months. The topic is complex, alliances and higher education institutions and their needs are diverse and continuously developing. Therefore, a follow-up is needed.
A next phase of the policy pilot, possibly in the framework of the future Community of Practice for European Universities, must continue to enable higher education institutions to work in co-creation mode with policy makers at the European and national level towards a tailored instrument serving the needs of higher education institutions in transnational cooperation. This will also ensure that there is full understanding, especially at the national/regional level, of what practical obstacles higher education institutions concretely face when cooperating across borders and how these obstacles can be overcome.
Adapting an existing instrument such as the EGTC along the lines recommended in this report (see Chapter 4), could be a way to create such an experimental space, and to develop towards a fully-fledged European legal instrument for transnational higher education cooperation. Although previous attempts to design European legal instruments show that the process takes time and it is dependent on politics and the good will of Member States, designing a new dedicated instrument for transnational higher education cooperation is the ideal way forward in the long term.