Dr. J.M.M. Ritzen

President Maastricht University

Former Dutch Minister of Education, Culture and Science

Chair, Empower European Universities (NGO)

Central EuropeanUniversity

September 29, 2010

Challenge: Raise ability of European

universities to be internationally competitve

Problems in the European university landscape

• Too few peaks in the European university landscape, losing top talent to the rest of the world

• Successful enrolment of students from socially disadvantaged groups is too low

• Overall drop-out rates are too high• University research contributes too little to innovation• University education is not sufficiently related to the

demands of the labour market• Percentage of female full professors is often no more

than 10 to 20% on average• The attention for efficient and effective learning of

students is virtually absent and innovations in learning methods occur too rarely

Current crises • Current economic crisis• Demographic changes• Environmental

crisis• Challenge:

Educate a student body capable of facing dealing with these crises

The demographic crisis in Europe

• European universities are far removed from providing the basis for a strong and viable Europe, in a cultural, socialand economic sense.

• The nationalness of universities has shielded them in thepast decades from international competitionNationalness is also in conflict with theinternationalisation efforts of European universities and the globalised labour market of its alumni.

The problem of nationalness

Providing world leadership: The need for responsible graduates

Globalized leadership is the ability to function effectively on the international labour market in advanced positions; in the positions where strategic decisions are taken in the private and in the public sector.

Universities need to innovate their teaching in order to beable to equip students with the skills necessary for globalizedleadership.

Suffocating finance

Bureaucratic governance

Europe Building

• Increase the autonomy of universities

• New avenues after Bologna Process became national

• More private funding• More differentiation

A Manifesto

Pleading for a change• level of universities• level of Governments• level of EU

EU

• A Europe Statute• Competition through European finance

for attractiveness

A Chance for European Universities

• The current crisis is a chance, so let‘s use it!

• My publication is available online at:http://www.chanceforuniversities.eu/

• Or with Amsterdam University Press

Thank you for your attention!