Improving pedagogical practices has become a priority in the European context for both universities and governments (Lalle & Bonnafous, 2019). Eutopia, one of 41 consortia of European higher education institutions created and funded by the European Union since 2019, initially brought together 6 institutions and expanded to 10 by 2021. Each consortium has set a series of priorities in order to initiate exchanges and promote joint work. The priorities set by the Eutopia alliance are mainly focused on student-centred approaches, diversity and inclusion. In this respect, academic innovation for teacher education is an important topic.

This communication focuses on the mechanisms for improving teaching practice in six universities of the European University Alliance Eutopia, and is part of a broader research for a doctoral thesis on "Lecturer Education".

The training and support for the teaching staff can lead to changes in conceptions (Demougeot-Lebel & Perret, 2011; Gerard, 2016), but there is no evidence of changes in practice in the short (Ménard et al., 2017) and long term (Ménard et al., 2020). Some training specifications have been studied (Stes et al., 2010) making it possible to determine best periods and methodologies as well as minimum durations. But most of these studies make the same observation: differences, particularly cultural and institutional ones, can influence the effect of training and thus its results.

For this reason, our research aims to explore the pedagogical development of university faculty (Demougeot-Lebel & Lison, 2022), articulating local (departments and universities), regional, and national levels.

Whether they are public or private institutions, the universities studied have a great deal of autonomy but are nevertheless guided by the orientations of national or regional governance. We need to determine at what level the obligation to train exists, if at all, for example, whether it is a legal or a local obligation. Similarly, we would like to know whether training in higher education pedagogy is taken into account in the careers of teaching staff. The different statuses of teaching staff therefore should be questioned. Similarly, the question arises of a teaching reference framework that could lead to a certification recognised beyond the local structure. And more concretely, what resources and means have been implemented for this training at local or even national level? Finally, within the framework of the Bologna process, many elements have been put in place, whether to harmonize diplomas or to assess the quality of teaching and training curricula. European alliances aim at developing internationalization of teaching between universities. The question is, does it lead those universities to harmonize their practices by relying on European reference systems.

This is why we felt it necessary to compare these different contexts in order to describe the ecosystems (Bronfenbrenner, 1981) where teachers evolve: from the national or regional governance (macro level) to the institution (meso level), including the department in charge of teacher training, to the professional environment of the teaching staff (micro level), both during and outside the training courses.

At these different levels, the capability approach (Fernagu, 2017) aims to explore the resources that can be mobilized by teachers, such as the training offered by the institution at the meso level, but also the conversion factors that promote or hinder the mobilization of these resources. According to this theory, it is important to explore the teachers’ freedom to choose the resources that correspond to their context, their background and their wishes, as well as their training’s assessment. For instance, they should be able to choose the course and/or the kind of reflective writing they want to be evaluated on.

We tried to reach the 10 universities of the Eutopia alliance and were able to conduct 6 semi-structured interviews in the spring of 2022. These were the University of Warwick (UW) in England, Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB) in Belgium, Universitat Pompeu Fabra (UPF) in Spain (Catalogna), CY Cergy Paris Université (CYU) in France, Universidade Nova de Lisboa (NOVA) in Portugal, and Göteborgs universitet (GU) in Sweden. The interviewees were responsible for teacher training in all these universities. In most countries (UW, VUB, CYU, VUB, GU) there were full professors involved in research, and in NOVA it was a PhD student. An interview grid was used to find out about the context of each university, the recruitment methods and the professional situations of the teaching staff, the different measures taken to train them, support them and evaluate their teaching practice. Finally, we wanted to know about the incentives for training and the impact of digital technology on the instructional development of teaching staff. Each interview lasted between 40 and 80 minutes. To complete the macro level (as defined previously), we studied the CurieXplore summary sheets (https://curiexplore.enseignementsup-recherche.gouv.fr/). These are written by the Cooperation and Cultural Action Counsellors and the Science and Technology Counsellors of French diplomatic posts abroad for the Ministry of Europe and Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Higher Education, Research and Innovation. These sheets provide a landscape of higher education in each country, in particular its historical context, organization, funding and evaluation. These landscapes were complemented by the Trends 2018 and 2022 surveys (Gaebel & Zhang, 2018; Zhang, 2022)) conducted by the European University Association with local experts on teaching and learning in European higher education institutions. The interviews were then analysed In December 2022, in terms of ecosystems (Bronfenbrenner, 1981) and the capability approach (Fernagu, 2017) to describe the resources that could be mobilized and the facilitating factors at different levels. Finally, we did research on the websites indicated in the documents, regarding sources or institutions, or mentioned in the interviews, regarding services or projects. This allowed us to produce 6 monographs. The completed monographs were sent to the interviewees for proofreading or even updating in January 2023.

Our research shows there are large disparities between the six universities in terms of both the volume of training, which can vary from 40 to 400 hours, and the legal obligation to train. The latter is not widespread and is generally reduced to a local obligation of the institutions. Abandoned in Sweden in 2011, the legal obligation to train now exists only in France, along with a 32-hour release from duty that is not found in any of the other five institutions studied. Another difference concerns the certification of teaching skills. While most teacher training received at universities can be recognized at another university, only England has a tiered certification system corresponding to different stages in the career development of teachers. Finally, teaching practice is evaluated and valued differently throughout a teacher’s career. While student evaluation of teaching is widespread to varying degrees, the recognition, symbolic and/or financial, of practice can be done at the local level (GU) or at the governance level (UPF) often based on a file. Beyond these differences, the comparison of these contexts shows the need for a systemic approach to improving teaching practice. These practices must move from the micro level of individual or team initiatives to the centre of the public space (Fraser, 2011) to be shared, discussed and valued by all stakeholders. This approach, implemented in four out of the six universities studied, leads to the development of a culture of continuous improvement of teaching practices. It is based on the assumption of responsibility, at several levels (micro, meso, macro), for the establishment of a reference framework, initiatives and means set in place both to ensure high-quality initial and continuing training and to evaluate and improve teaching practices.

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