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  • Eureka! European Research Universities and the Challenges of the 21st Century
  • Snejana Slantcheva (bio)
Bart Funnekotter (Ed.). Eureka! European Research Universities and the Challenges of the 21st Century. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2005. 160 pp. Paper: $33.25. ISBN: 9-0535-6752-6.

Eureka! European Research Universities and the Challenges of the 21st Century offers a portrait of 12 top-ranking European, research-intensive universities that united as the League of European Research Universities (LERU) in 2002. Upholding the idea that fundamental research is essential for Europe's prosperity, the League of European Research Universities aims to lobby for European funding for research and to promote institutional collaboration amongst its members. Through the eyes of members of their academic community, Eureka! presents the 12 institutions as places of inquiry, striving for unity and excellence in research and teaching, and aiming to balance "pure" science and "useful" research.

In the introduction, Professor Douwe Breimer, Rector Magnificus of Leiden University, reasserts the pivotal role that research universities play in the creation of the future European knowledge-based economy. The gradual shift in focus from fundamental to applied research, due to diminishing public finances and increased industry involvement in university research, has impacted the competitiveness of united Europe. This trend highlights the necessity of reinforcing [End Page 213] fundamental research in all university disciplines, of improving knowledge transfer between universities and industry, and of expanding Europe's research capacity by training future generations of scientists.

The ensuing 12 chapters sketch the 12 LERU members and follow a similar organizational pattern. Each chapter begins with a brief description of the history and development of the institution. The 12 universities are the University of Cambridge (Cambridge, UK), the Karolinska Institute (Stockholm, Sweden), Universiteit Leiden (Leiden, Netherlands), Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (Louvain, Belgium), the University of Oxford (Oxford, UK)—all five founding members of League of European Research Universities—the University of Edinburgh (Edinburgh, Scotland), Université de Geneve (Geneva, Switzerland), Ruprecht-Karls-Universitaet (Heidelberg, Germany), Helsingin Yliopisto (Helsinki, Finland), Universita degli studi di Milano (Milan, Italy), Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitaet (Munich, Germany) and Université Louis Pasteur (Strasbourg, France). These 12 European institutions represent a blend of older and newer, smaller and larger, comprehensive and specialized universities. What they share in common, however, is their strong commitment to integrated research, their national and international reputations as research centers, their openness to international cooperation and partnership, and their entrepreneurial spirit.

After the 12 chapter portraits come the perspectives of top-ranking administrators, world-known scientists, and academic entrepreneurs. These perspectives offer examples of how different research universities adapt to the national and international environment. Attracting funding for high-level research is one major challenge they face. In this sense, many from the university management see the League of European Research Universities growing into a powerful organization that will exert pressure at the European level for funding. At the same time, institutional initiatives that bring income from their research abound.

The LERU partners subscribe to the pursuit of excellence in all fields of human inquiry and to the unity of pure science, applied research, and teaching. In this regard, institutional representatives openly discuss pressing challenges. How to make institutions more accessible to talented students from diverse social backgrounds, to build internal structures to support interdisciplinary collaboration, to strengthen the humanities, to institute the bachelor-master structure, to find a balance between instruction in the national language and in English, and to attract students and researchers from abroad are amongst the challenges these institutions grapple with. This is where some of the academic community see LERU's role as an organization that would foster cooperation amongst members of the League of European Research Universities. Joint research and teaching programs and the exchange of know-how amongst institutions are forms of cooperation that Eureka!'s interviewees discuss.

At the end of each chapter, Eureka!'s authors attempt to detect the level of organized student life at each institution. To a large extent, however, the student reflections on the quality of their life strike the reader as often inconsequential in the overall perspective of the research capacity and entrepreneurial initiatives of these institutions, even though the reader can learn much about nightlife...

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