This is a critical moment for higher education systems across Europe. Our universities face the challenge of fiscal retrenchment. At the same time, globalisation means growing competition from institutions in North America, South East Asia and elsewhere. To attract students and research funding, our systems must continue to modernise.

In meeting these challenges, however, our higher education systems will make a vital contribution to growth and prosperity. By generating knowledge for commercial exploitation and by preparing students for the world of work, universities are essential to improving economic performance.

Success in both these areas hinges on strong, equal partnerships between universities and businesses. In a situation where governments are less able to take on the burden of funding research, such partnerships are necessary to develop clusters of excellence which, in turn, generate further investment.

Similarly, universities need to do more to prepare their students for employment, while employers – in the public as well as the private sector – should be involved in curriculum design.

This is not about reducing higher education to the function of job training. Universities perform civic, intellectual and cultural roles which are just as important as any economic one. Nevertheless, they have a responsibility to ensure that students – the principal users of universities – obtain the skills necessary to support them during their working lives. Higher education provides young people with a primary route into adulthood and employment. It is important not only that every young person, irrespective of background, has the opportunity to study at university, but that sound advice on higher education and subsequent careers is available from an early age.

In the global higher education marketplace, the value of international partnerships is increasingly evident, and there is much we can learn from each other. There is, of course, a long history of fruitful collaboration between our countries and our universities. France and the United Kingdom, for example, were among the original signatories to the Sorbonne Declaration in 1998, which set the Bologna Process in motion and led to the creation of the European Higher Education Area.

More recently, there is an encouraging trend towards more joint degree programmes, dual diplomas and joint research projects between French and British institutions, in addition to the ongoing exchange of students and faculty.