Academic careers have always been competitive, but Europe’s higher education sector now faces numerous challenges such as demographic shifts and funding cuts, precarious contracts and working conditions. To this end, EUA has launched a set of five key principles to assist universities in ensuring that academic careers remain attractive and sustainable in the long term.
Also this month, EUA published a new briefing on ‘Reclaiming academic ownership of the scholarly communication system’. This paper describes the current status of academic publishing, highlighting the main factors shaping the system and the key challenges faced by the academic community, as well as identifying opportunities for universities to play a leading role in defining the future of scholarly communication. Meanwhile, the EUA Council for Doctoral Education released the first results from a wide-ranging survey on European doctoral education during the recent EUA-CDE Annual Meeting in Lausanne.
Ahead of the summer break, June has also been a busy month for European policy. In recent weeks, EUA has submitted input to shape the EU’s future strategy for AI in science and contributed to ongoing discussions on key topics such as the implementation of the European Education Area, the European Research Area’s next Policy Agenda, the need to preserve the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions’ bottom-up approach and Europe’s duty to champion academic freedom and protect academics at risk.
Finally, I am pleased to let you know about several new opportunities to contribute to EUA’s work. Applications are now open for a focus group in September on EUA members’ expectations, needs and concerns regarding the future ERA Act. A call has also been launched for applications to join a new EUA task-and-finish group as part of EUA’s ‘Spotlight on Sustainability’. In addition, the call for contributions for the 2026 European Learning & Teaching Forum, which will address ‘Impactful staff development for educational transformation’, is now open.
Amanda Crowfoot
EUA Secretary General
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