In 2014 the institutionalization of European higher education and training, as well as research and innovation, policy entered a new phase: a number of financial instruments were simplified and merged. The Erasmus Mundus programme, wherein consortia of European and overseas universities built joint master's or doctoral degrees, was split into two parts: joint master's degrees now belong to education policy, and joint doctorates became a minor part of the Horizon 2020 programme for research and innovation. The programme illustrates how supranational institutions use "soft power" to harmonize policies. Using data from interim evaluations of two funding instruments, this article argues that the policy change marks the institutionalization of emerging concepts of European master and European doctorate as two distinct areas, not only different cycles of education. The master is constituted as individual investment, and the doctorate becomes a means to Lisbon (innovation and economy) more than Bologna (streamlining education systems) objectives.