EUEduPol explores how EU policy instruments (PIs) influence higher education. While initiatives such as the Bologna Process promote Europeanisation, PIs offer financial rewards to higher education institutions and national governments in return for meeting specific performance targets, challenging education's traditional role in nation-state building and raising concerns about politicisation and academic autonomy. This project investigates how PIs gain legitimacy, achieve compliance, and align with national norms. Focusing on two EU PIs, the European Semester and Recovery and Resilience Facility, EUEduPol uses an innovative methodological approach in education policy research: Natural language processing AI method of large-scale policy documents and political discourse analysis. Research data include public policy documents and elite interviews. The outcomes include an open-access database, the sharing of an open code; and a new line of study on Europeanisation research.

2026

2030