The External Dimension of European University Alliances: Universities as Transnational Actors

Abstract

This panel examines how European University Alliances engage beyond the European Union and increasingly operate as transnational actors in global higher education governance and external relations. While the European Universities Initiative has been primarily analysed as a tool for internal integration and capacity-building within Europe, its growing extra-EU dimension remains underexplored. Yet alliances are progressively developing structured partnerships, policy interactions, and institutional presences in regions outside the EU, raising important questions about their role in knowledge politics and external action. The panel focuses on how alliances and their member institutions interact with extra-EU universities, governments, international organisations, and non-state actors, and how these interactions shape the circulation of expertise, standards, and institutional models across borders. Rather than treating internationalisation as a neutral or purely academic process, the panel approaches European University Alliances as collective infrastructures through which knowledge, norms, and governance practices are mobilised in global contexts. Analytically, the panel addresses three interrelated dimensions. First, it explores the forms and logics of extra-EU engagement developed by alliances, including strategic partnerships, quality assurance cooperation, policy advice, and capacity-building initiatives. Second, it examines the role of expert knowledge and institutional practices as vectors of influence, highlighting how European higher education models travel and are adapted in non-EU settings. Third, it interrogates the tensions and constraints shaping these processes, including asymmetries between partners, limits to institutional autonomy, and the interaction between national, European, and supranational agendas. By bringing together empirical research on different regions and policy contexts, the panel contributes to broader debates on transnational governance, informal diplomacy, and the politics of knowledge. It advances an understanding of European University Alliances not as unified diplomatic actors, but as hybrid and negotiated formations whose external engagement operates through soft governance, incremental change, and multi-level coordination. In doing so, the panel sheds light on the evolving role of universities in shaping Europe’s global presence beyond formal foreign policy instruments.

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