Agrégateur de flux

Depuis des années déjà, nombre de chefs privilégient les produits de saison, les circuits courts et les fournisseurs adeptes d'une agriculture raisonnée pour limiter leur impact sur la nature, qui leur fournit les matières premières au fondement même de leur activité. Certains bannissent la viande rouge jugée trop polluante, et certains vont encore beaucoup plus loin comme le chef Alain Passard, triplement étoilé depuis plus de trois décennies pour son restaurant l'Arpège de la rue de Varenne à Paris, où la carte est désormais à 99% végétale. Il nous explique sa démarche dans "Au cœur de l’info".

Quelle : © Europäische Union, 2025 - EP

Scaled Composites’ Model 437 Vanguard returns to flight, expanding its envelope ahead of Northrop Grumman’s Beacon autonomy flight testing. The Scaled Composites Model 437 Vanguard has resumed flight testing at Mojave Air and Space Port, entering a new phase of envelope expansion flights that will prepare the aircraft for its role in Northrop Grumman’s Beacon […]

The 2025 edition the European Consortium for Political Research (ECPR) General Conference at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki in Greece, 26-29 August. These were four intense days of thousands of participants exploring most pressing political issues of our times over a range of featured roundtables and hundreds of panels. The conference section of the ECPR Knowledge Politics and Policies standing group included 9 panels on topics such as politics and policies of academic freedom, higher education, universities, science diplomacy and Artificial Intelligence. Our standing groups also contributed to the featured panels of the conference on ‘Rethinking AI in research’, ‘Academic Freedom under Pressure’ and ‘Academic Freedom and Political Science in Challenging Times’.

 

This was the 14th time that our Knowledge Politics and Policies Standing Group organized a section at the ECPR general conferences and the 10th anniversary since we participate as a Standing Group since we were established in early 2016. Over the years, our Standing Group has provided a forum for engaging discussions, collaborations and networking. Currently we have over 270 members. This year the ECPR requires the renewal of standing group membership. To remain our member or to join us, please head to ‘MyECPR’ to ‘My Groups’ and renew your membership by 30 September. To have a glimpse of rich discussions in our Knowledge Politics and Policies section in Thessaloniki, please have a look at the panel summaries written by panel chairs.

 

University Alliances

Chaired by Andrew Gunn and Marina Cino Pagliarello the Comparing University Alliances panel featured four presentations. The papers all considered the European Universities Initiative (EUI) and highlighted the importance of national contexts within the study of this supranational scheme, the role of institutions and the wider political agendas at work.

 

The first papers addressed the challenges of realising Quality Assurance at multilateral university alliance level. The Concept of Quality Assurance in European University Alliances: Same Old or Innovative Transformation? presented by Daniela Craciun and Institutionalisation and Jointness of Purpose-Driven Transnational Higher Education Networks by Mark Frederiks. These presentations unpacked the practicalities of alliance operation. When building a new multilateral alliance, the earlier phase of setting out grand visions and vistas is followed by the hard work of making this happen on the ground. This is the difficult and technical part of alliance building. The research presented illustrated the diversity in frameworks and the legal and regulatory barriers for cooperation. Daniela Crăciun argued that quality should neither be imposed or taken for granted, but allow for diversity and flexibility to promote innovation, while Mark Fredericks posed the questions of weather merely replacing ‘institutions’ with ‘alliances’ in quality documents is sufficient.

 

In a change of theme, the paper Avoiding Peripheralisation: Swiss and British HEIs Participation in the EUI by Antonin Charret and Agata Lambrechts provided a reminder that not all EUI alliances are in the EU. This highlights importance of the nation state and need to consider what happens there. The research explained how there are both institutional and national drivers for Swiss and British universities to join and sustain engagement with EUI alliances

 

In the final paper EUI as Sociotechnical Imaginaries: A Constructivist Analysis of the EELISA alliance, Merve Çalımlı Akgün considered the political purpose of the EUI. The analysis explored how the EU positions EUI alliances as non-state actors that promote liberal and democratic values, drive green and digital transformations, and enhance sustainable economic prosperity for a resilient Europe. It considered how the EU’s higher education imaginary is expressed in alliances, tracing how these imaginaries are enacted from EU policy frameworks to institutional strategies and everyday life.

 

Internationalization of Higher Education

In the panel ‘Internationalization of Higher Education: Exploring (Geo)political and Policy Developments’, Anatoly Oleksiyenko (Education University of Hong Kong) provided a rich account of the complex impacts of Russia’s aggressive war upon the internationalization of Ukrainian institutions. While faculty are working, and students studying, under profoundly onerous conditions, online learning, the large number of Ukrainian women hosted abroad in foreign universities, and strong expressions of solidarity from many HEIs abroad also presented strategic opportunities. In the keen discussion that followed, the role of the war in giving cognitive salience abroad to Ukrainian HEIs, but also the varied degree of solidarity, and also uncertainty about its longevity, were explored.

 

Ann-Kristin Matthé (Maastricht University) presented illuminating comparative research from her doctoral work on the extent to which, and means by how, German and Dutch HEIs seek to influence policy and resourcing priorities of national, regional and EU public institutions with responsibility for internationalisation initiatives. The research is innovative and important; making the HEI the core unit of analysis, and looking at varieties of university-level actorhood in endeavouring to shape the policy and funding environment to serve their own priorities. Agency the individual professor level, and the limited authority of German rectors to steer faculties were discussed, stimulating a lively dialogue with session participants.

 

Synne Lysberg (Universitetet i Bergen) presented an engaging paper based on her doctoral work that established her theoretical construct and method in analysing how Norwegian higher education institutions have responded strategically to the introduction of performance agreements from 2016, and to which all HEIs are subject to renewal in 2022. The imposition of a system of performance agreements typically represents a state attempt to foster a diversity of institutions and offerings, although may also give rise to unintended pressures for homogenization as some institutions draw legitimacy from resembling other established HEIs. Synne draws on a framework from Oliver (1991) to categorise the tactical and strategic options that HEIs subject to performance agreements in a state dominated system. The research promises to be very illuminative not only of the Norwegian case but offer lessons for the implementation of performance agreements in other higher education systems.

 

Christopher Pokarier (Waseda University) presented on how populist politics in the lead-up to a recent nation election saw heavy scapegoating of full-fee paying international students for contributed to a perceived housing crisis, and universities ostensibly losing their ‘social license’ through heavy reliance on international student revenues. This politics manifested in a both Government and opposition supporting the capping of international student numbers; despite potentially severe financial impacts on HEIs. This unprecedented reversal of a hitherto laissez-faire policy, since the late 1980s. Inclusion of international students in net migration numbers, which suggested post-covid, contributed to community unease, fuelled then by political entrepreneurship.

 

Higher Education Policy Actors Between Tradition and New Modes of Governance

The panel on “Policy Actors in Higher Education Between Conservation of Traditional HE Values and Engagement in New Modes of Governance” chaired by Agata Lambrechts brought together a diverse set of papers examining how different actors—from students to institutions—are navigating the complex, and often conflicting, demands of the contemporary higher education landscape. The studies highlighted how these actors defend traditional humanistic values, how they navigate conflicting sets of pressures and expectations, as well as how they engage in new modes of governance across levels and countries.

 

The challenge of upholding traditional values in a changing environment was a central theme. Cláudia Figueiredo’s paper co-authored with colleagues from Universidade de Aveiro, explored the tensions between humanistic values and the rise of managerialism in Portuguese universities. Content analysis of six universities’ strategic plans revealed the struggle to reconcile the pursuit of knowledge for its intrinsic value with the growing emphasis on market-driven concerns, such as viewing students as “clients.” The study provides insight into how institutions attempt to strike a balance between academic integrity and the demands of efficiency and financial constraints.

 

At the same time, the panel explored how actors are embracing new governance frameworks. Agata Lambrechts’s paper, co-authored with Marcelo Marques and Lukas Graf, analysed how global grand societal challenges function as a transnational governance tool within EU education and training policy. By examining the European Universities Initiative (EUI) and the Centres of Vocational Excellence (CoVEs), the research showed how these challenges justify new forms of policy experimentation and institutional arrangements, signalling a shift in how EU policy is steered and legitimised.

 

Nadia Manzoni

A key focus of the discussion was also the emergence of new organisational actors. Giuseppe Lipari’s paper traced the rise of the Global Student Forum (GSF), a democratic, representative student entity. He detailed how the GSF is carving out a role within a decentralised global higher education policy framework, leveraging its “legitimate power” to influence decision-making processes. His work highlights a new era of global student representation after decades without a unified voice. Similarly, Nadia Manzoni’s research examines the recently established FOREU4ALL Community of Practice, an organisation that represents all EUI alliances. Manzoni’s paper defined this community as an emergent international organisation that is fostering a kind of “sideway Europeanisation.” Her analysis of this new actor’s role in promoting social learning and peer pressure among Member States demonstrated a new, non-hierarchical mechanism for domestic policy change.

 

Collectively, these papers provided a nuanced view and underscored the dynamic interplay between different values and the evolving role of policy actors in shaping the future of higher education in Europe and globally.

 

 

Science diplomacy

The panel ‘Science Diplomacy: New Directions and Areas of Study’ took a broad approach to science diplomacy, addressing a range of actor types that are less prevalent in the literature – industry, universities, and early career scientists. With a paper on ‘Diplomatic Practice in Silicon Valley’ Kristin Eggeling of University of Copenhagen explored the relationship between science diplomacy and tech diplomacy in an ethnographically-grounded paper that focused on state-firm relations in California. The paper also drew interest for its revisiting of Susan Strange’s conceptual work. Luis Junior from University of Coimbra presented on ‘Epistemological Security in the Global South: the BRICS Academic Forum’. His paper applied this new concept bridging harder-edged IR on security with knowledge-based policy concepts to explore the unique case of scientists’ role in agenda setting for the BRICS.

 

The role of early career scientists was explored in the following two papers. Valentina Gruarin of the Università di Catania presented her paper on ‘Youth Expertise and Science Diplomacy: Framing Regional Knowledge Spillovers for Policy Innovation in EU-MENA relations’ and Tatyana Bajenova of European University Institute presented on ‘The Involvement of Young Stakeholders in Science Diplomacy at National, European and Global Levels: the Case of Switzerland’. Both papers showed the increasing role of young scientists in the practice of science diplomacy. The final paper, ‘Science Diplomacy and Foreign Interference in the EU’, by Mitchell Young of Charles University focused on the ways universities are addressing research security and how that can elucidate a shift in their societal dynamics. There was lively discussion and questions, and as always, too little time.

 

How Do Universities Die?

The panel “How do universities die?”, chaired by Alexander Mitterle and Roland Bloch (both Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg) addressed organizational conditions under which universities and their programmes survive or fail. Alexander Mitterle focused on the higher education sector with the highest death toll: the private. Tracing the life trajectories of all German private universities since 1945, he discussed the environmental changes and the deregistration of roughly a third of the sector. Yet, despite this volatility, he showed that most universities persisted in different forms: with its multiple bodies the private university left multiple chalk outlines on site but exposing a high level of adaptability was rather difficult to kill.

 

Roland Bloch returned to his work on the extraordinary expansion of the graduate school model in Germany due to the excellence initiative, in a system dominated by the master-discipline-relationship. With the end of the funding line and no money to gain, the school concept had no driver. Would it die? Bloch shows a large number of schools survived. Only those built around a common topic lost their founders’ interest, mostly quickly. Umbrella and graduate schools funded by the excellence initiative overwhelmingly survived. It appears ceremony and status decrease the risk of death. Overall, the graduate schools seem to have passed their tipping point for German graduate education: it is doomed to survive.

 

Hannah Mohrmann discussed the rise of helping professions in higher education as a murder mystery. While for some the increasing administrative and supportive burdens in universities are subverting and “killing academia”, others see them as the stabilising force to counter rising internal complexity. The case is complex: structural changes in higher education have led to severe reorganisation in and outside of academia. Helping professions act as support for the myriad deficits academics face – from emotional control to resilience – providing guidance and empowerment. They thus might improve survival or at least pave the way into academic afterlife. In crafting and refining evaluative criteria and the means of success, they, however, also increasingly co-define how death and survival look like.

 

Artificial Intelligence and Power

Inga Ulnicane

For the sixth year in a row, our section included a panel on Artificial Intelligence. Since 2020, this panel has led to many impactful publications on AI policy, governance and politics, and created a network of researchers working on these topics. The topic this year ‘Demystifying Power In/ of Artificial Intelligence‘ again attracted a lot of interest. In the first talk, Inga Ulnicane discussed multiple meanings of the term governance in interdisciplinary literature on AI governance that often prioritizes technocratic and technical approaches of governance and tends to neglect its political and power aspects. In their paper on policy instrumentation in platform governance, Ville Aula and Meng-Hsuan Chou compared recent regulatory initiatives in the European Union and Singapore to study the evolving social contract between the state, people and market.

 

The paper by Tero Erkkilä, Juho Mölsä and Ville Aula focussed on the role of ombudsmen and new regulatory bodies in overseeing AI. By studying how different EU member states implement the EU AI Act’s requirement about oversight, they identified a range of approaches such as centralized and sectoral, with Ombusmen having a key role especially in centralized models. Last but not least, Konstantinos Kostas presented his research on the Finnish approach to human-centric AI, focusing on broad and intricate history of human-centricity as a policy concept in Finland since World War II. In the following discussion, the four papers raised a lot of questions on emerging good practices in AI governance, the role of democracy, and the influence of EU AI policy accross the world. We will keep working on these and other questions in this fast developing area. If you would like to collaborate, please let us know.

 

Migration-Higher Education Policy Nexus

Chaired by Alina Felder-Stindt (University of St. Gallen) and Meng-Hsuan Chou (Singapore University), the panel “The Politics of Migration-Higher Education Policy Nexus” examined the complex interplay between migration and higher education policies in the context of global skills shortages. The panel explored how different political, institutional, and economic actors (fail to) coordinate when designing policies that aim to attract and retain highly skilled individuals. One key theme was the influence of tuition fee structures and student support policies on international student mobility, particularly across OECD countries (Zhamilya Mukasheva, LSE). Another was the concept of “edugration,” which refers to the geopolitical dynamics that emerge when education and migration governance become intertwined (Eva Hartmann, University of Cambridge).

 

The panel also discussed internal migration patterns among educators, using Italy as a case study to show how teacher mobility affects higher education reform. Additionally, it examined how university rankings shape migration governance, influencing both institutional strategies and student choices (Astrid Favella, Sapienza University of Rome). Finally, the panel presented empirical findings on why immigrants tend to prefer academic education, drawing on a factorial survey experiment conducted among students in the Canton of Vaud (Kousha Vahidi, Université de Lausanne). The discussion by Tero Erkkilä (University of Helsinki) showed how together, these contributions offered a rich, comparative perspective on how migration and higher education policies co-evolve, revealing both synergies and tensions in the pursuit of high-skilled labor.

 

Interest Organizations

The panel “Interest Organizations in Knowledge Politics and Policies” focused on the role of interest organizations in shaping knowledge policy, particularly within the higher education sector. The discussions examined how these organizations represent diverse stakeholder interests, engage in policy formulation, and navigate complex institutional environments. Alberto Márquez-Carrascal’s (Spanish National Research Council (CSIC) – The Autonomous University of Madrid (UAM)) contribution analyzed the role of advocacy coalitions in shaping higher education policy in Madrid, particularly during times of institutional crisis. It showed how universities and allied actors mobilize to influence policy outcomes.

 

Alina Felder-Stindt’s (University of St. Gallen) paper examined the European Universities Initiative, illustrating how project-based approaches serve as pilots for broader EU higher education policy development. The paper by Michael Oduro Asante and Martina Vukasovic (Universitetet i Bergen) investigated leadership dynamics within interest group networks, focusing on how intra- and intersectoral career changes of interest group leaders in the field of education. Together, these studies offered a rich and multifaceted view of how interest organizations develop their policy agendas, emphasizing the strategic choices they make in response to shifting political and economic contexts. It also addressed how these organizations relate to their members, highlighting the importance of internal governance structures and operational dynamics in sustaining legitimacy and influence.

 

Academic freedom

Academic freedom is a topic with increasing salience. From being a norm often referred to but rarely discussed in detail, academic freedom has now become an important policy issue in Europe – both national and European level. In parallel, academic freedom is also gaining increasing scholarly attention. The latter was also illustrated by the fact that ECPR organized two large roundtables on the issue where members from the Knowledge Politics and Policies Standing Group were represented. At the Knowledge Politics and Policies Section, the panel on academic freedom was packed, with five presentations on Friday afternoon. Despite the placement at the very end of the conference, the panel attracted a lively debate on current issues and provided a number of interesting insights on current challenges.

 

In their paper, Mari Elken, Jens Jungblut and Peter Maassen examined how and why academic freedom has obtained such a prominent place on European level policy debates. The paper analyses how policy coordination takes place at multiple policy arenas – The Council of Europe, The EU Commission and the European Parliament, as well as the Bologna Follow Up Group (BFUG). The paper highlighted the pivotal role of the Central European University case, and shows how ongoing policy initiatives in this area on European level are not fully coordinated, but have contributed to the issue keeping momentum.

 

Daniela Craciun and Marcelo Marques presented their work in analysing how the worrying trends concerning erosion of academic freedom are reflected in the news coverage on academic freedom in higher education from University World News (UWN). Utilizing automated text analysis and structural topic modelling, the analysis showed an overall  increase in reporting on academic freedom between 2007-2025, with a notable increase in the last decade. Coverage has been geographically diverse, and the scope of reporting has expanded from isolated incidents to broader global and systemic concerns. Central themes include the erosion of academic freedom and the risks faced by the academic community when they dissent or challenge political and institutional authorities.

 

In the third paper, Christiane Thompson presented her ongoing work on the state of academic freedom in Germany with an analysis of “the protection” of the university, utilizing both interview data with various stakeholders and university staff, as well as documents around controversial cases including statements and press releases. The analysis showcased recent discursive attacks on the universities as “safe spaces” and how this in itself has lead to attempts to regulate academic speech.

 

Vasiliki Kosta and Olga Ceran put focus on a key piece of legislation on European level – namely the Art. 13 of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights which deals with academic freedom. In the paper they build on their work done in the AFITE project and analyse whether there are limits to commercialization of academia due to Art.13 CFR.  The analysis points to different channels of commercialization and how other policy fields may have spillover effects and raises questions of the role of EU law in national higher education laws and policies.

 

In the final presentation, Anne van Wageningen positioned academic freedom as “oxygen” for higher education institutions to operate. He emphasizes the need for precision when discussing academic freedom, and clear distinction between freedom of speech and institutional academic freedom. By looking into the legal relationship between institutional academic freedom and government influence in four countries as well as EU and Council of Europe, the analysis explores different ways in which academic freedom is safeguarded.

 

Standing Group Business Meeting

At our Standing Group Business meeting we discussed our past and future activities. Among other things, we celebrated our 2024 Knowledge Politics and Policies Standing Group excellent paper award from an emerging scholar which has been awarded to Anna-Lena Rüland (University College London) for her paper ‘“We Need a CERN for AI”: Organized Scientific Interests and Agenda-Setting in European Science, Technology, and Innovation Policy’. Soon the call will be out for the next round of the excellent paper award, stay tuned. The next 2026 ECPR General Conference will take place at Jagiellonian University Krakow in Poland from 8-11 September. If you would like to be part of our section there or any other of our activities, please join us and get in touch!

The post ECPR Knowledge Politics and Policies 2025 appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

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