In my PhD research I focus on the European Union's policy in the area of higher education and in particular the reform momentum gained in the last 5 years with the establishment of the European University Alliances - 62 networks of around 560 universities from across Europe that aim to integrate their teaching and research capacities. The focus of my research is on the responses of the EU Member States to the growing push from the European Commission and the Alliances themselves to 'deregulate' national higher education laws and use public funds to facilitate quite unprecedented levels of internationalisation of universities. In order to find possible explanations for the reluctance of some EU Member States to support these reform efforts and the enthusiasm of others, I looked into the literature on European integration, policy preference formation and tried applying some of the public policy theories to the case of the European Union. However, I realised that in order to fully comprehend how EU Member States will react to, say, proposals for a European degree in the Council of the European Union, I cannot ignore the waves of neonationalism sweeping across Europe or the growing geopolitical role of higher education that national governments want to keep control over.

This is where my research stay comes in. For a period of 3 weeks in September 2024, I joined a team of researchers around Katja Brøgger at the Danish School of Education, the Copenhagen campus, who are working on the project „Asserting the Nation“ which through comparative studies explores state-university relations in European higher education policy. The part of this team's work that I was particularly interested in is the focus on the tension that universities are experiencing between the ideals of deeper integration at European and global levels and the increasingly protectionist national agendas they are subjected to. The aim of the research stay was to enhance my theoretical framework and expand it with the exploration of this tension and to improve my research methodology by engaging in conversations with Dr. Katja Brøgger and Dr. Hannah Moscovitz. During the research stay, I enjoyed the resources at the extensive library specialised in education literature and I was embedded in the group of PhD students associated with the “Asserting the Nation” project, which meant that we exchanged on our work and gave each other feedback on our ongoing research. The meetings also sensitised me to the particular case of Denmark, whose national policy of re-nationalisation of higher education has led to very lukewarm responses to European initiative in higher education by universities.

Finally, I hope I was able to not only benefit from the research stay grant but also offer my little contribution to the academic community interested in European higher education policy. I hope to have thrown a spotlight on the importance of analytically connecting the resurgence of neonationalist agendas in national political spheres and the dynamics of policy making in transnational political bodies such as the Council of the European Union, especially when it comes to nationally sensitive areas of policy such as education. It is important to look at how European integration and coordination of higher education policies is stimulated or hampered by these national agendas. In my case, this extends also to researching how European University Alliances, as emerging political actors, are navigating this territory in a changing type of governance of higher education policy at European level. I do hope that the connections established during this research stay will in the future lead to further collaborations on joint research projects and inspire more people to look into the topic. To that end, I am happy to be contacted on Manzoni_Nadia@phd.ceu.edu.