Aquameth (which was exploratory and considered very risky by the Scientific Committee) deals with a new approach to measuring university performance. It has brilliantly demonstrated that there were other approaches to measure the performance of universities than the one-sided or multi-criteria rankings developed, such as the Shanghai, DfG or CWTS rankings. The results have given rise to a book, multiple articles and numerous presentations, in particular in policy-related fora such as OECD and Eurostat. Its results have already been mobilised in EC reports (see EC high level group on rationales for the ERA, April 2008). The approach has also grasped interest from the new generation of researchers, and has driven the project to organise 2 summer schools (2006 and 2008).

It required to be really fruitful that our knowledge of universities be enlarged from the very narrow set of available indicators. Thus the experimental project on the “Observatory of the European University” (OEU). This second project developed with voluntary universities aimed at building an indicator framework to support their ability to make strategic choices. It was thus not geared toward controlling purposes (as most national monitoring systems have developed) and ‘harmonisation’ was looked for, in a similar way as for firms, that is enabling stakeholder analyses and comparisons when considered relevant. One central feature has been to use the future requirement for all public bodies to develop an “intellectual capital report”, and to propose a near-to-OECD guide to support such development. This project finished end of 2006, and has developed approaches and proposals that are more and more taken up in institutional university circles or by accreditation agencies (e.g. AERES in France).