Higher Education, Mobility and the Subsidiarity Principle

Two issues related to higher education in Europe are addressed in this paper. One relates to the mobility of students, especially the Bologna process, the other to that of researchers with a special focus on the new starting grants of the European Research Council. In both cases subsidiarity is at stake. Regarding the Bologna process, we issue and discuss the proposition that, rather than subsidising the schools and universities located in its territory, each government provides the students whose it might be regarded as the government of the country of origin, with vouchers which can be used either at home or abroad to enrol for credits in schools whose quality has been certified. Providing the students with vouchers may mean giving them for free, selling them or lending them. Regarding the other issue, we discuss the consistency of the assignment of similar competences to various levels of governments. Our discussion suggests that, if national or sub-national governments have to be permitted to compete for attracting researchers on their territory, it makes sense to also assign the twofold mission of research and regional policy to a central agency, provided that its strong commitment toward the poorer region is well established. Furthermore, the two levels of government need to decide simultaneously on their respective actions since that scenario dominates other settings where the three players interact