European universities face joint degrees ‘hell’ before ‘paradise’

The European Commission and universities in European Union-funded alliances have said only action by governments can end the regulatory “nightmare” of trying to award joint degrees.

At the forefront are the 41 university alliances that have been set up with funding from the EU’s Erasmus+ programme.

Maria Gravari-Barbas, a professor at Panthéon-Sorbonne University – Paris 1, is responsible for developing a joint doctorate in cultural heritage for the Una Europa alliance. At an event on 16 March, she said the regulatory “bottlenecks” were “diverse”, citing rules on tuition fees, the selection of students, the use of foreign languages in degree programmes, the creation of interdisciplinary programmes, enrolment conditions and graduation criteria.

“The existence of such differences in national legislation makes negotiating a joint degree a very complex exercise. We are often lost in translation, to tell you the truth,” she said.

Antoine Doucet, a professor at the University of La Rochelle and vice-president of the EU-Conexus alliance of small, coastal institutions, said that as there was no extra national funding for their joint degree work, institutions had to find the money elsewhere. This causes problems because it is illegal for public institutions in France and Germany to charge tuition fees, he said.

“You cannot give a master’s degree, so you actually have to go through some tricks: to give a diploma that is equivalent to a master’s degree but is not a master’s degree,” he said. “In this case, we end up giving six diplomas, and we would like to give one.”

“European joint degrees will be a paradise, but the way to them will be like hell,” said Thierry Coulhon, president of the High Council for the Evaluation of Research and Higher Education (HCERES), a French regulator.

Speaking at the same event, the European Commission’s higher education policy lead, Vanessa Debiais-Sainton, said EU officials understood the complexity that joint degrees involved. “We know the difficulties that you’re having. We see it through the Erasmus Mundus programme,” she said.

Erasmus Mundus, the EU’s 18-year-old joint master’s funding programme, must involve three institutions from three different countries. Ms Debiais-Sainton said only a third of universities participating in the programme could currently award joint degrees, contrasting this with the scale of the alliances, which can cover nine national jurisdictions. “Can you imagine the nightmare that these universities are going through?” she said.

“Our priority is to unlock these bottlenecks,” she said, referring to an agreement between EU education ministers on transnational education, due at the start of April, which would, she said, “address” quality assurance, interdisciplinarity and interoperability.

However, EU diplomats are currently split over how far to align their regulatory powers, with a majority in favour of diluting the commission’s joint degree proposals down to a “label”, an EU certificate presented to graduates alongside their degree.

Ms Debiais-Sainton acknowledged that quality assurance was a major issue for joint degrees, with only 11 EU countries having implemented a 2015 agreement under the Eurasian Bologna Process. She said the April agreement between EU governments would simplify joint assurance by pushing for institutional accreditation.

“You accredit the institution, not the programme, which is very, very important in view of the fact that we are expecting these European university alliances to deliver not only one joint programme, but many,” she said. Despite the volume of red tape facing universities, she said the label and the momentum on accreditation would be “very good steps”.

“Let’s dream big and let’s build on the enthusiasm to make this label a success, so then we can convince the member states and the council to go to the next step, which is the European degree.”

ben.upton@timeshighereducation.com