Lisbon agenda 'will be delivered by the next generation' 

In line with the Commission's initiative to modernise European universities, the first European University/Business Forum took place on 28-29 February 2008. It brought together representatives of higher education, business and both national and EU-level politicians. 

Under discussion were the modernisation of university governance structures with help from businesses; curricular changes targeting greater employability and a more entrepreneurial mind-set among graduates; academic mobility; and lifelong education and retraining. 

Changes in how the academic world operates have already been introduced in some countries, but stakeholders agree that every mindset cannot be changed overnight, admitting that it will take time before even the most traditional European systems have been modernised to correspond to new societal needs.

"The Lisbon agenda will not be delivered by this generation, but by the next one," stressed Professor Alan Barrel from the University of Cambridge. 

He explained that the academic world needs time to create a new mindset before all EU universities can fully embrace the ideas of co-operation with business. Furthermore, it will take time for "bottom-up grassroots changes" to happen and contribute to creativity and innovation.

Thus far, French plans to implement EU recommendations on higher education reform have attracted opposition from students, university staff and the French association of researchers. All fear that state disengagement could lead to excessive private-sector influence over higher education curricula and unequal development of universities. 

According to the Commission, the forum responds to calls from both universities and companies for a platform for dialogue. Education Commissioner Ján Figel' said he hoped the event would become a "permanent, open-minded forum for structured dialogue between the two parts of society". Figel' also said that co-operation between business and academia was "not an option but a must". To overcome the skill-mismatch paradigm, "universities need to know how the corporate world evolves and what skills business needs," said Figel', who also listed a number of benefits of more co-operation, in particular increased funding for universities and maximising investment in human capital, staying at the edge of innovation, and speeding up transfer of research into innovation for business.

Moreover, Figel' said "business and academia need to trust each other," responding to fears that business might distort the tradition of academic mission or interfere with traditional academic freedom. He also said that "Europe has been too weak for too long in bringing the worlds of university academia and business enterprise together to achieve successful commercial exploitation of academic excellence. Europe's universities have tended to shy away from 'getting their hands dirty' with business. This attitude is totally inappropriate in the 21st century."

French Minister of Higher Education and Research Valérie Pécresse told EurActiv that her answer to French students' and universities' concerns about the reform was dialogue and reassurance of that this reform is in their interest. "Our stance begins to be understood as students and universities see that we have put a lot of public money on the table to improve the quality of bachelor degrees, university real estate and facilities for students." 

She also said that France wanted to bring universities and the economic world closer because "we think that insertion of students in the workplace should be the third mission of universities." Conceding that this was "a big issue, a big taboo", she nevertheless said that "students are currently very afraid of their professional perspectives in universities". She identified finding a balance between "curricula and professional perspectives" as a "our main problem", saying the balance need not  be exact but should give people the "necessary competences to work in any field". "This is why we put a special emphasis on training periods and language learning," she said.   

Pécresse also revealed that the French EU Presidency will launch a European Charter inviting universities to open their doors to everybody throughout the life in order to contribute to life-long-learning (LLL) also in higher education and to allow people to have "several careers in their lives". Current EU policies promote LLL only in vocational education and training (VET).

Slovenian Minister of Growth Žiga Turk said that "governments are not good at creating excellent universities" as their approach is too egalitarian, promotes the average and avoids competition. "Top universities are the result of market competition," he argued.