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Universities of Europe are suffering now from “Wimbledon syndrome” states Pro-Vice Chancellor Lykke Friis, Copenhagen University’s; like Britain, they created the game but today do not stand any chances of being champions. So she takes a look at the possible ways to change the situation and breathe life into their fortunes.

Being at home and writing to the very captivating but off-putting sounds of Wimbledon championship on TV I hit upon the thought that promoting research as well as higher education itself in Europe suffers now from the so-called Wimbledon syndrome. Similar to Britain that hosts the world’s chief tennis tournament but can never win it, at the same situation are Europeans on education. The first university of the world was Plato’s Academy situated in Athens, and certainly respected old universities are located across all the Europe from Coimbra and to Cambridge and to Copenhagen. The main principle of the contemporary university which joins research as well as education was created in Berlin at Wilhelm von Humboldt’s university, yet modern Europe is outperformed by the United States.

No more than 2% of the GDP of the EU is for research (cf. 2.5% of the US, 3% in Japan). For example, in France, the expenses per student on higher education are over $9,000 and in Germany this figure is under $11,000 whereas in the UK this accounts almost $12,000. A number of EU countries − together with Denmark − do much better, but the United States’ figure is over $25,000.

As a rule it is the amount of research along with education budgets that makes the output quality. Measuring the output quality of university is very difficult, though The Times Higher Education Supplement tries to do so each year. Only a few European universities, i.e. Oxford, Cambridge plus London Imperial College, were included to the Top Ten, and all the others were all American.