The challenge
Europe's higher education landscape is highly diverse, making it difficult to compare institutions, track policy progress and assess national systems. Before creating the European Higher Education Sector Observatory (EHESO), evidence was spread across separate EU data tools and projects, such as the European Tertiary Education Register (ETER), U-Multirank, Eurostudent and Eurograduate, as well as national sources. This created overlaps and potential key gaps for decision-makers.
The European Strategy for Universities called for an observatory that would combine the best of these tools in one place. The European Commission (DG EAC) and the European Education and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA) therefore needed a single, user-centred platform. The challenge was to consolidate existing EU data instruments, streamline data collection, and supply comparable evidence on key policy priorities such as transnational cooperation, academic freedom, inclusion, the green and digital transitions, and graduate employability.
Approach
Verian leads the international consortium that develops and operates the European Higher Education Sector Observatory (EHESO) under a service contract with EACEA. Alongside Verian, the consortium brings together AIT Austrian Institute of Technology, Joanneum Research, CHE Centre for Higher Education and CHEPS (University of Twente), organisations with long-standing experience of running ETER and U-Multirank. As lead partner, Verian:
- Coordinates the Observatory as a whole: managing the contract, running the governance structure with the European Commission, EACEA and advisory bodies, overseeing quality assurance, and developing the roadmap for the Observatory's further development.
- Leads the analytical and exploitation strategy of EHESO, steering the co-design of indicators with users and stakeholders to monitor EU higher education policy objectives.
- Led the development of the European Higher Education Sector Scoreboard, the Observatory's first tool, launched in January 2025, which compares European higher education systems on transnational cooperation, future-proof skills, EU values and international cooperation.
- Developed the visualisation of EHESO tools on the European Commission's National Policies Platform during the Observatory's first phase and prepared its handover to EACEA's technical team.
- Following the integration of the Eurograduate graduate tracking survey into EHESO, set up the central survey infrastructure for the third survey wave (Eurograduate 2026) and supports participating countries in using it.
Verian works hand in hand with its consortium partners, who lead other core strands of the Observatory. Joanneum Research leads the development of the EHESO Data Centre, which integrates ETER, U-Multirank and other data sources, and AIT and Joanneum Research run the ETER data collection. CHE, together with CHEPS, runs the streamlined institutional and student surveys that feed into the Benchmarking Tool for Higher Education Institutions, and leads the design of the future European Student Hub. AIT leads communication and stakeholder engagement, as well as the coordination of Eurograduate 2026.
Impact
Under Verian's coordination, EHESO is turning fragmented higher education data into a coherent evidence base for users across Europe:
- For policymakers: the European Higher Education Sector Scoreboard offers a single entry point to compare higher education systems and monitor progress on European Education Area and Union of Skills objectives, supporting evidence-based policy design.
- For higher education institutions: the Benchmarking Tool for Higher Education Institutions lets universities compare themselves with similar peers across Europe and beyond, on dimensions ranging from teaching and research to regional engagement and societal challenges, to support strategic planning and quality enhancement.
- For researchers and students: open access to EHESO microdata supports academic analysis, Eurograduate results shed light on graduates' employment and skills, and the forthcoming European Student Hub will help students compare institutions and study programmes.
Links
EHESO on the National Policies Platform
European Higher Education Sector Scoreboard
Benchmarking Tool for Higher Education Institutions
EHESO leaflet (Publications Office of the EU)
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