European University Alliances as a form of Horizontal Europeanization: overcoming the barriers to Everyday Europeanhood?

European University Alliances (EUAs), set up since 2019 in the framework of the Erasmus+ programme, have been heralded as a potential vector of increased Europeanization in the Higher Education sector (Fuchs et al., 2023; Gunn, 2020). Situated at the sub-national level, they involve universities and their local ecosystems in transnational cooperation projects, characteristic of "Horizontal Europeanization" as described by Martin Heidenreich (2019). Based on a case study of one such alliance, using survey data from quality assurance procedures, this paper takes a critical look, from a sociological perspective, at the way in which "Everyday Europeanhood" (Frame & Curyło, 2022) is experienced by university students and staff involved in alliance activities. Feedback from involved stakeholders draws a complex picture coloured with enthusiasm and empathy, but also mistrust, suspicion, lack of confidence, and administrative hurdles. This suggests that progression is not linear, nor is it unidirectional, and that increased (imposed) proximity does not necessarily play out in the sense of the Contact Hypothesis (Allport, 1954), but produces a contrasted impact in terms of parties’ evolving attitudes to one another, but also to the "imagined communities" of the partner universities, the nation states, the alliance and of Europe. As an example of horizontal Europeanization, the FORTHEM Alliance is not limited to one region or cross-border area of Europe, but spans the different European regions, including both CEE countries (Romania, Poland, Latvia) and Nordic countries (Finland, Norway), as well as Western European ones (Spain, Italy, France, Germany). Although it is specific to this alliance and hence not generalisable, the study provides original sociological insights into ways in which individual actors in the Higher Education sector go about making sense of politically-led top-down Europeanization, through their everyday practices.