Culture and Education as Cornerstones of EU-INDIA International Relations: the case of the E-QUAL project

This article is intended to present the “E-QUAL - Enhancing Quality, Access and Governance of Undergraduate Education in India” project, explaining why the European Union funded it and with which aim. It will consider how so-called cultural diplomacy plays a key role in EU-India international relations. EU international cultural relations are shaped to make the EU a stronger global actor and to connect international partners at a deeper level, involving key civil society actors such as Universities. The EU has developed a comprehensive approach and a series of tools to finance education actions. Among these was the "Support to Indo-European Interactions on Higher Education” programme which funded the E-QUAL project from 2013 to 2017. The E-QUAL project aimed to create an innovative approach to enhance the quality, access to and governance of undergraduate education in India, which was going through a phase of acute crisis due to a mismatch between quality and quantity/numbers. The project’s impact is in line with the EU-India policy cooperation, and dialogue developed especially in the framework of EU-India partnership instruments, covering sectoral cooperation and contacts between people at various levels and in several areas, including higher education.