Micro–level indicators of knowledge production: The AQUAMETH project on European universities

The ability of European universities to develop a strategic profile and to compete in the (accelerating) world competition is severely limited by the institutional context: lack of institutional differentiation constraints to financial autonomy impossibility to differentiate job descriptions for academic staff uniform contracts between universities and the State regarding teaching and research poor institutional flexibility There are several arguments which support the effort done by the AQUAMETH project: We address issues not covered by aggregated statistics, at OECD, Eurostat or DG Research level. The project did its job with limited (even too limited, actually) financial resources. This shows the potential for rigorous data gathering and data analysis exercises at European level. The integration of micro-data at European level, taking into account all possible comparability issues, is a fundamental requisite for the European Research Area.