ERA-CRN Workshop: The governance of the Europe of Knowledge

Tatiana Fumasoli will hold a presentation on Emerging scientific élites: how European research funding instruments trigger integration and fragmentation of the Europe of Knowledge at the ERA-CRN workshop about The governance of the Europe of Knowledge.

The UACES network ERA-CRN organizes its first workshop which will take place in  the Robinson College in Cambridge on the 10-11 April 2014. The topic of the workshop will be "The governance of the Europe of Knowledge".

The year 2014 is significant for the Europe of Knowledge, marking the long-anticipated delivery and renewal of Europe’s ambition to become the global knowledge leader. Indeed, it is the deadline set for completing the European Research Area (ERA), as well as the official start of Horizon 2020, the main European Union (EU) funding instrument for pure and applied research. Against this backdrop, this workshop invites papers to go beyond the ‘crisis mode’ that has occupied EU studies in recent years and to critically reflect on the evolution of European knowledge cooperation and governance. Specifically, we are interested in theoretical, empirical and comparative contributions that investigate the role of the ‘four I’s’ – ideas, interests, instruments and institutions – in the construction of the Europe of Knowledge. By ‘role’, we refer to the effects that an idea, an actor (individual or organisational), a policy instrument and an institution have on the ‘knowledge area building’ exercise. Our focus on ‘roles’ is to enable a multidisciplinary discussion on whether these factors share defining characteristics across the different knowledge policy domains (i.e. research and higher education). From a research design perspective, this entails conceptualising the ‘four I’s’ as either independent or intervening variables.

Papers at the workshop will be exploring a variety of themes. For instance: Do ideas and concepts such as the ‘fifth freedom’ impact policy cooperation in the same way in the research domain as in the higher education sector? Or do they reveal different properties (e.g. normative vs. strategic)? If so, to what extent does this difference account for the development we currently observe? Another avenue of investigation is to identify the actor constellation and institutional arrangements shaping and emerging due to the overlap between the ERA and the European Higher Education Area (EHEA) (e.g. doctoral education). Can we see a dominant set of actors moving between the ERA and the EHEA? If so, are EU knowledge policies more coherent as a result of these actors’ stable interests? Or, conversely, are policies in the knowledge domains radically different because these core actors’ interests change when moving from sector to sector? To what extent does the implementation of adopted policy instruments for the ERA and EHEA contribute to destabilising or strengthening the Europe of Knowledge? More broadly, the workshop will look at whether the European experience is unique or part of a wider global phenomenon known as ‘higher education regionalism’?

 

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Published Mar. 18, 2014 3:00 PM - Last modified Mar. 21, 2014 5:08 PM