Enhancing University Lifelong Learning Cultures

Cois, Ester

;Cendon, Eva;Bakker,Wieger;O'Connor, Kathleen

2025-01-01

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Abstract

Lifelong learning (LLL) has become a defining agenda for higher education systems facing profound global transformations that are reshaping societies, labour markets, and the very meaning of participation in social and economic life. Far from representing a discrete phase of formal education, LLL is now widely understood as a lifelong and life-wide process (Aspin & Chapman, 2000; UNESCO, 2016). It is a process that accompanies individuals across shifting personal trajectories, technological transitions, and ecological landscapes. From this perspective, fostering robust cultures of LLL is crucial (El Amoud, Weait, & Steering Committee of eucen, 2025) not only for economic competitiveness but also for social resilience, democratic participation, and the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals by 2030. This issue of the European Journal of University Lifelong Learning originates from the 2025 Lille Conference, “Enhancing University Lifelong Learning Culture in Europe,” and reflects its core ambition: to explore and understand how universities can actively contribute to building sustainable, equitable, and interconnected LLL ecosystems across Europe and beyond. While rooted in European debates, the contributions gathered here deliberately extend beyond a single geographical frame, engaging with diverse institutional and policy contexts. Together, they share the common conviction that universities are increasingly called to assume a transformative role, acting as hubs connecting public and private organisations, regional and national authorities, employers, educational systems, learners, and citizens within complex learning ecologies. This ecosystemic vision resonates with sociological understandings of multi-actor governance and territorial development (Sotarauta, 2016), as well as with contemporary policy frameworks that emphasise strategic coordination, accessibility, and shared responsibility for learning across the life course (OECD, 2021; CEDEFOP, 2020). Rather than treating LLL as an add-on to traditional university missions, all contributions invite a rethinking of higher education’s role within broader social, economic, and civic transformations. The structure of this issue relies on three thematic pillars: strategy and leadership in university lifelong learning; LLL ecosystems and the role of universities; flexible learning pathways. In order to provide a coherent narrative that reflects both the complexity and the interconnectedness of LLL from an international perspective, the papers will follow a conceptual progression that moves from macro-level policy frameworks, through meso-level institutional practices, to micro-level learner experiences.