Session
✅ Included for all participants
What began as a revolution now faces a reality check. Seven years in, European Universities Initiative alliances are struggling with funding models, governance, project logic and balancing education with research. They also face growing challenges related to their structural and legal setup, including the creation of joint legal entities. This panel session will explore challenges, hidden tensions and the path forward to turning the original vision into a sustainable future.
Maria-Valerie Schegk serves as Secretary General of the Young Universities for the Future of Europe (YUFE) Alliance. In this role, she leads collaboration among the Alliance's partners to strengthen cooperation and deepen YUFE's impact on its communities and the wider higher education sector. She is passionate about developing innovative strategies that benefit diverse learner groups, support skills development, and enable academics to secure European funding opportunities.
Previously, she worked at the Technical University of Munich (TUM), where she contributed to the launch of the EuroTeQ Engineering University Alliance. With more than 12 years of experience in Brussels, she has helped shape the European Higher Education and Research Areas and related policies. Her expertise spans European university alliances, higher education policy, institutional transformation, stakeholder engagement, and international collaboration.
As committed European, Maria-Valerie is dedicated to advancing the role of universities in addressing societal challenges, fostering lifelong learning, and strengthening the European knowledge ecosystem. She currently serves on the Forum Board of FOREU4ALL, the Community of Practice for the European Universities Initiative.
Fernando Galán is Executive Director of the EU-CONEXUS European University Alliance at the Catholic University of Valencia. He is a senior European higher education policy and quality assurance expert with more than a decade of experience in university governance, transnational education, joint programmes and degrees, recognition, higher education law and European cooperation. Before joining EU-CONEXUS, he was Secretary General of the Arqus European University Alliance, Head of International Engagement at the Spanish Rectors’ Conference (CRUE), Policy and Project Officer at EURASHE, and President and Head of Secretariat of the European Students’ Union (ESU).
He has contributed directly to major European higher education developments, including as a member of the drafting group of the ESG 2015 and through the development of the European Approach for Quality Assurance of Joint Programmes. He coordinated EDLab, an Erasmus+ policy experimentation project on the European Degree Label, and currently serves on the Advisory Board of the European Commission’s European Degree Policy Lab. He has also served on the boards of the Bologna Follow-Up Group and EQAR, and on the steering committees of EQAF and EUA’s Institutional Evaluation Programme.
