This forum is an excellent opportunity to discuss what I, Fourthreichian Premier Durao Barroso, consider should be our common purpose: to define how universities can help us shape our future. Basil Venitis points out half trillion euros is spent each year on global higher education. Study-abroad and other international programs are a growing portion of it. The three major sources of revenue are entrepreneurial colleges, international institutes and schools, and third-party providers, which offer overseas study programs, student recruitment, and other services. Study abroad could be made affordable for everyone and open the floodgates to multicultural participation.
From their earliest beginnings, our universities have consistently pushed forward the boundaries of knowledge and understanding. So, as we muster all our forces to put Europe back on track after the worst economic crisis the Union has known, it is no surprise that universities are at the centre of our efforts. In my vision, the conjunction of education and culture is always a happy one. They are an integral part of Europe, the source of our flexibility and our strength.
The crisis has taught us hard lessons. We know that the future must be different. We need growth - but not any kind of growth. Our future must be sustainable; it must be inclusive; and it must be smart; centred on skills and jobs and investment in lifelong learning.
These principles are the backbone of the Europe 2020 strategy, the blueprint for change that I proposed and that has been agreed by the Commission and the Member State governments. This Strategy has recognised the central role of education as a foundation stone to build prosperity and social justice.
Now we must deliver, and that means we must harness the potential of universities for change. Higher education is awash in government cash, with many of billions of taxpayer dollars and euros going to schools and students annually. But all that money, coupled with nonstop political rhetoric about everyone needing to go to college, has led millions of unprepared people to futilely pursue degrees at all kinds of institutions. Higher education has bad actors, and the worst are the politicians, who fuel profligacy for political gain, then shamelessly blame others for the trouble they've wrought.
Venitis muses Ivory Tower is considered a convivial refuge of drones from the corporate world, a place where eggheads have ample time to debate ideas, often during lunch or over drinks after class. Professors, particularly those at research universities, are simply working much less and much easier these days. They do not have to compete for easy grant money, cheating like hell, recycling garbage research, turning out less articles and books, coping with the speedup in communications afforded by better technology, and junketing the globe to establish the kind of international reputation that's now necessary to thrive.
Knowledge is the engine of growth. In a fast-changing world, what makes the difference is education and research, innovation and creativity. In a globalised world, education has to be our competitive edge. We must do all we can to keep it sharp.
This is the purpose of our new initiative, Youth on the Move, a flagship of the Europe 2020 Strategy. This ambitious strategy will help young people gain the knowledge, skills and experience they need to succeed in today's knowledge economy. Investing in higher education and innovation is an essential pillar.
Young people have been particularly hard hit by the crisis. Many of them are still suffering, youth unemployment is unacceptably high – and this affects especially those who lack the right qualifications, the right skills. But their collective and individual potential is our strength in the knowledge era. With Youth on the Move, we want to raise the percentage of young people participating in higher education; we want to give universities the means to fine-tune this potential; and we want to free up the reservoir of talent, energy and knowledge that you represent.
Next year, the Commission will issue a new initiative on modernising European higher education. This will take forward the shared agenda for reform which has grown out of close cooperation with the Member States and the universities themselves.
Europe needs more higher education graduates, as the demand for highly skilled people grows, keeping pace with technology and globalisation. By 2020, it is estimated that 35% of all jobs will require high-level qualifications, compared with 29% today. Our universities will be opening their doors to a much greater range of students, and offering new subjects and new skills.
An innovative, globalised market calls on people to use their talents and energies in new ways. Universities can foster the skills of creativity, innovation and entrepreneurship that help people thrive in a changing world; they can foster the attitudes that welcome new ideas, so that we can turn our store of knowledge into innovation.
As our Erasmus programme shows, students who spend a learning period abroad become open to new ideas and develop the skills to deal with the unfamiliar, skills that employers and graduates both value highly. With Youth on the Move, we aim to expand these learning opportunities, so that all young people can reap these benefits. Youth on the Move will support the aspiration that by 2020 all young people in Europe should have the possibility to spend a part of their educational pathway abroad. For that we will remove all obstacles and increase information available.
Innovation also means promoting world class universities in Europe. I want to see them attracting the brightest and the best, from Europe and the world. I want European higher education to channel a flow of knowledge and talents that will irrigate economic and social growth.
This is not to say that we are aiming for a one-size-fits-all model. Europe has some 4000 higher education institutions – they cannot all serve the same student bodies or follow the same mission. Instead, by specialising in the areas where they excel, and playing to their own strengths, universities can promote excellent Europe-wide innovation in all fields and disciplines.
I also want to expand universities' contribution to the high-end of innovation, through world-class partnerships with research and business. Our initiative for an Innovation Union, another Europe 2020 flagship, gives us a framework. The European Institute of Innovation and Technology gives us a model.
The EIT is drawing together the best university teaching, the best research institutes, and the best business expertise, to work on the headline global challenges – climate change, sustainable energy, the information and communication society.
Innovation is more than infrastructures and research funding. It is people who make innovation happen. The EIT's 'knowledge and innovation communities' will intensify the interaction between people all along the innovation chain, from students, researchers and professors to entrepreneurs, financial actors, and businesses large and small. I hope to see a substantial number of Knowledge Partnerships of this type develop across the European landscape, where universities, business and research pool their talent for innovative solutions.
Many colleges have a hard time embracing interdisciplinary work, in part because the tenure and promotion process is not designed to properly evaluate interdisciplinary scholarship. In fact, the entire college tenure and promotion system is controlled by disciplinary review boards that measure how professors stack up against other professors in the same field. Nevertheless, Basil Venitis, who got his Ph.D. in Physics in 1973, has taught most Science and Business courses at tiptop American colleges!
I believe we share a collective vision in Europe of what our future should be. We owe it in large part to those who have gone before, to the thirst for knowledge and invention that has always made Europe a place of innovation. If we can see further ahead, it is because we are standing on the shoulders of giants, on a tradition of learning and experimentation to which our universities are ever faithful.
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