Europe

This statement from the European Commission’s Third European report on S&T indicators 2003: towards a knowledge-based economy demonstrates that universities are central to European Union economic and social policy. European science, along with regional policies, is designed to address the European paradox which is that Europe has a strong science base but poor performance in terms of technological and industrial competitiveness compared to the US (EC 1996; EC 2003a). The creation of a ‘Europe of Knowledge’ has been a prime objective for the European Union since the Lisbon European Council of March 2000 and the ‘European Higher Education Area’ set out in the Bologna Agreement in 1999. These new systems of governance in which the EU and national governments will work together are designed to combat the unnecessary fragmentation and compartmentalization of university research and teaching policies to overcome that paradox (EC 2003a). The accession of ten new states to the EU in 2004 further complicated efforts to bring about a unified system of teaching and research.