Modeling the Interplay of Policy and Practice in the EUI: Towards a Comprehensive, Multi‐Level Perspective on Europeanization

ABSTRACT

The European Universities Initiative (EUI) constitutes a key instrument of Europeanization in higher education, linking supranational policy objectives with institutional practices. Successive alliance calls have broadened opportunities for cooperation while generating new regulatory, organizational, and coordination challenges. Positioned at the meso‐level of governance, European University Alliances (EUAs) translate top‐down policy frameworks into bottom‐up, context‐sensitive practices that are embedded in local university ecosystems and that produce multiple levels and overlapping forms of Europeanization. Building upon Europeanization, multi‐level governance, policy learning, and the concept of “Everyday Europeanhood,” the study develops a conceptual framework to analyze the interplay between EUI policy and practice. The paper contends that the EUI promotes policy learning across multiple governance levels. It examines Europeanization through the lens of the EUI and understands the former as an ongoing process shaped by interactions among European institutions, Member States, alliances, and universities.