☰ European Academic Foundation EAF

1. Status Quo

For many decades, the EU and national governments have striven to integrate Europe’s higher education system. Much has already been achieved on this path. The most impressive accomplishment perhaps is Erasmus+, which enables more than 280,000 university students (and more than 640,000 people in total) to spend time abroad each year. Erasmus+ has benefitted millions of participants who have been able to forge links across borders, practice foreign languages, expose themselves to other ways of living, enhance their personal development, expand their research, and more.

2. What's Missing?

And yet, we think an additional programme is needed. While other global players like the US and China are bringing together their brightest youth at highly selective universities, Europe’s most promising students are currently scattered across the continent with no way of communicating or cooperating with one another. Moreover, grave inequalities of opportunity persist within Europe: depending on whether you’re born in Romania or in the Netherlands, your chances of becoming, say, a successful physicist vary greatly. We need a solution that addresses both.

3. The Idea

We are therefore proposing a European Academic Foundation. The Foundation would support a few thousand students, making it considerably more selective than any other European framework. Its fellows would receive support for multiple years, making it a more permanent programme than currently exists. The Foundation would be based on two pillars: ideas and finances. Under the first heading, it would offer research academies, language courses, exchange semesters, and similar activities. Under the second, it would cover living expenses and tuition fees depending on individual need.

4. Benefits for Europe

We believe that a European Academic Foundation would be in the best interest of European society.

  • Firstly, it would push against the brain-drain plaguing some Eastern and Southern European countries. Students in these countries are facing a harsh choice between achieving academic excellence abroad or staying in their home countries. Through the Foundation, fellows choosing to stay at home could still feel part of a larger European enterprise that comes with tangible opportunities for them.
  • Secondly, membership of the European Academic Foundation could serve to certify academic excellence in a way that mirrors the role of prestigious universities in other parts of the world.
  • Thirdly, the need for more cross-border cooperation in all academic disciplines is widely acknowledged. Such cooperation, we believe, would be aided in the long term if some future leaders of civil society, academia, business, or the arts forge links as early as during their undergraduate and graduate studies.
  • Fourthly, the Foundation would instil in some of Europe’s most gifted students a particular responsibility towards society in general and towards Europe in particular.

    • 5. The German Model

    The European Academic Foundation draws inspiration from the German “Studienstiftung”, established in 1948. This is no coincidence. Much like Germany’s, Europe’s education system is relatively decentralised and heterogeneous. Granting the potential benefits of this model, it also comes with some drawbacks. Among those are, as mentioned, a lack of collective spirit and regional inequalities of opportunity: like-minded students from different parts of the country rarely cross paths, and their birth place and social background still affect their chances of success. In response, Germany has instituted an array of policies aiming to integrate academic life and equalise opportunities.