Coimbra Group

Coimbra Group
Data
Established	1985
Members	39
Continent	Europe
Countries	mostly EU countries also Norway and Switzerland
Leader	Piero Tose, University of Siena, Italy
Address	119 Rue de Stassart 1050 Brussels Belgium
Acronym	CG
Homepage	http://www.coimbra-group.be

Founded in 1985 and formally constituted by charter in 1987, the Coimbra Group is a network of European universities that gathers 39 universities, some of which are among the oldest and most prestigious ones on the continent.

The group took its name from the city of Coimbra, Portugal and the university located there, itself one of the oldest in Europe. The University of Coimbra celebrated its 700th anniversary in the same year the group was founded.

Mission

Quote from the Coimbra Group website (see below for link):

Founded in 1985 and formally constituted by Charter in 1987, the Coimbra Group is an association of long-established European multidisciplinary universities of high international standard committed to creating special academic and cultural ties in order to promote, for the benefit of its members, internationalisation, academic collaboration, excellence in learning and research, and service to society. It is also the purpose of the Group to influence European educational policy and to develop best practice through the mutual exchange of experience.

Critical Perspectives

Contrary to the self-definition, it can be said that the Coimbra Group is primarily a lobby organisation that attempts to push through the interests of medium-size, old research universities. Thus, it is less about excellence than about the allocation of ressources, both nationally and on the EU level. The irony is that the group as such, and many of the member institutions, do generally not support the traditional university with its focus on learning and on arts and sciences; rather, they promote a generally very rigid managerialism, seeing universities as for-profit institutions and budget-maximising as their aim. Accordingly, the Coimbra Group strongly supports the - so the critics - homogenising, harsh, de-Europeanising, and largely failed Bologna Process.

In addition, while some of the member institutions are indeed among the leading and oldest universities in their country, many if not most are actually not (although it is difficult to find comparable ranking systems). Clearly, most of the top universities, for instance, in Denmark, Germany, Finland, France, Greece, Norway, Austria, Switzerland, Spain, and Hungary are not members.

More cynical observers have said, especially in light of the factual ineffectiveness of the Coimbra Group, that it is merely a pseudo-elitist, self-congratulatory vehicle for university administration tourism at the taxpayer's expense (almost all member institutions are state-financed).