A decisive moment for Europe
Jurgen Rienks, director of Neth-ER, opened the event. He noted that this is a decisive moment for the European knowledge landscape, with the negotiations on the successors to Erasmus+ and Horizon Europe taking shape. While both alliances and CoVEs have proven their value, he stressed that proving value is not the same as securing their future, as both still rely heavily on project funding.
Diverse by design
The keynote was delivered by Stefan Zotti of the European Commission (DG Education and Culture, EAC). He described the alliances as one of the success stories of recent years, now bringing together 73 alliances and around 650 higher education institutions. He emphasised that they are diverse "by design": the Commission deliberately avoided a single blueprint, allowing different approaches to drive institutional transformation.
Rethinking funding and boundaries
Zotti also reflected on a changed landscape. The current Commission places strong emphasis on competitiveness and skills development, with the Union of Skills as a new policy framework. This raises broader questions about how higher education, higher VET and initial VET relate to one another, and whether the existing boundaries between them still make sense. In the long run, Alliances cannot be financed through Commission funding alone, Zotti argued, and European, national and regional funding need to be better aligned. He also announced that the Commission will propose a new legal status for alliances, intended to provide stability and resolve practical obstacles around funding and procurement.
A landscape for talent
Prof. Ines López Arteaga (Eindhoven University of Technology, EuroTeQ) presented the alliances as a key instrument for attracting global talent and investing in long-term competitiveness. She described EuroTeQ as a connected educational landscape giving students access to high-quality education, and highlighted its challenge-based learning programme, the Collider, which attracts a relatively high share of women in STEM. On funding, she argued that alliances need stable, long-term support. Six to eight years is short for education institutions, and a further term is needed to let the alliances reach full speed, otherwise the investment so far risks being lost.
Translating knowledge into impact
Dennis van der Pas (Avans University of Applied Sciences, PIONEER) described alliances as essential for turning European knowledge into European impact. He pointed to a triple impact of talent, knowledge and application in society, and stressed that the largest success factor for innovation is social acceptance, where alliances play a vital role through skills, validation and citizen engagement, such as PIONEER's urban living lab in Breda. He also argued that the alliances form a bridge between Horizon Europe and the future European Competitiveness Fund (ECF), and that performance indicators should focus on function rather than form.
Not a project, but a movement
Boudewijn Grievink (Katapult, PoVE Water) presented the CoVEs as an equally important instrument, describing them as the Dutch public-private partnership model applied across Europe. He explained how the Platform of Vocational Excellence (PoVE) Water grew into a bottom-up network of 126 partners, addressing the looming retirement of the workforce in the sustainable water sector and challenges such as safeguarding drinking water. CoVEs are regional and European at the same time; he stressed and should be seen not as projects but as a movement requiring longer time horizons. On behalf of the Dutch ecosystem, he referred to a published statement with recommendations, including smarter use of different funding systems and support for the grass-roots community of practice.
More than competitiveness
In the panel discussion, speakers warned against framing the alliances and CoVEs too narrowly around competitiveness and short-term economic value, pointing to their longer-term role in developing talent, skills and social acceptance. The importance of trust recurred throughout: building these collaborations takes time, but it is what makes the cooperation work.
No end date in sight
The Commission set out how it sees the initiatives developing. It stressed that these are systemic interventions that go beyond the individual benefits of mobility, and pointed to three principles for their future: there should be no fixed end date for funding, European and national funding need to work together, and support should be tailored to the diversity of the alliances rather than expecting each to do the same. Discussions on their future role in research are ongoing with DG Research and Innovation (RTD).
Context
The event took place as the EU institutions prepare their positions on the next generation of education and research programmes. The Commission has indicated it wants to open a broader discussion with the alliances and the Member States, which may run until the end of the year, before deciding on the future shape of the initiatives. The audience consisted of representatives from Dutch and European knowledge institutions, Commission officials and other stakeholders.
