Rising demand for joint degrees

But more needs to be done for the ultimate cross-border degree to reach its full potential.

Integrated degrees, awarded by universities in two or more nations, are on the rise in Europe. Yet governments are being told that more needs to be done if the ultimate form of integrated study - the joint degree - is to achieve its full potential.

It is easy to see why integrated degrees are popular with the architects of the European higher education area. Universities combine across borders to optimise their strengths, offering degree programmes of outstanding quality or addressing highly specialist subjects. These are mostly masters programmes, although integrated bachelor degrees are becoming more common. The student, meanwhile, gets a profound international experience, spending a year or more abroad in the case of bachelor degrees, rather than the two or three months common in mobility programmes.

In practice, the amount of integration varies, according to a survey of such programmes carried out for the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) and the German Rectors’ Conference (HRK). The simplest approach is more duplication than integration: the partner universities run identical courses, and the student can decide which parts to follow in each country.

A few universities do this, the survey found, but most go further: all of the partners provide a similar core curriculum, but each then offers specialist options from which students can choose. But just under a third of those surveyed have a completely integrated approach: complementary courses at different institutions are built into a mandatory programme, which optimises the contribution of each partner.

A further indicator of integration is the type of degree that the student receives. "If you want really close co-operation, a very integrated programme, it is quite natural and logical that you have only one single diploma covering all three, or four or five universities involved," explains Siegbert Wuttig, head of DAAD’s EU programme. "This is at least the long-term perspective."

His caveat is made because true joint degrees are few and far between, awarded by only 16% of programmes covered by the survey. Most award double or multiple degrees, that is to say two or more national diplomas, sometimes accompanied by a joint certificate from all of the partner universities.

By far the most common excuse for not awarding a joint degree is that such a diploma is not legally recognised in one or more of the partner countries. According to Wuttig, progress has been made in removing such legal barriers, but more needs to be done, particularly in non-EU countries.

This is one of the messages that will go to education ministers participating in the Bologna process of European higher education reform, following a seminar held in Berlin in September to discuss the survey results. Another is about money. About one-third of the programme directors surveyed claimed that they did not have sufficient funds to support incoming or outgoing students adequately, while a quarter said funds were short for staff mobility and meetings with partner universities.

There are joint degree sceptics within the Bologna process who think that the costly approach of joint degrees is only justified in a limited number of subjects that call for highly specialised education, such as tropical medicine. "Although a large number of programmes are being developed, there’s quite a lot of evidence that they don’t really have a critical mass that is sustainable," says one Bologna insider. But that does not mean that the experience is not useful. "In the long term the main effect of these programmes will be to develop institutional trust and make possible more vertical mobility, so that when people finish a bachelor degree they will be more likely to think of doing a masters in another European environment."

• Ian Mundell is a freelance journalist based in Brussels.

But more needs to be done for the ultimate cross-border degree to reach its full potential.