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This paper is focused on the links between reform agendas and their rationales in higher education and in welfare state services across Europe. Lessons learnt from past and ongoing welfare state reforms can be useful in understanding ongoing and future higher education reforms. Research on reforming European welfare states is a missing context in research on reforming European universities. We intend to fill this gap and briefly explore possible links between these two largely isolated policy and research areas. European universities and European welfare states are closely linked today because they are heavily dependent on public funding – and the competition for public funding between the different claimants to it is on the rise. Reforms of both sectors are also closely linked to increasing intergenerational conflicts over public resources in aging societies, and pressures on both sectors are linked to the shrinking tax base, the power of the neoliberal ideology, and changing social attitudes to both welfare and universities. Problems of both sectors and solutions to them are increasingly being defined at a global level through transnational reform discourses. ; This paper is focused on the links between reform agendas and their rationales in higher education and in welfare state services across Europe. Lessons learnt from past and ongoing welfare state reforms can be useful in understanding ongoing and future higher education reforms. Research on reforming European welfare states is a missing context in research on reforming European universities. We intend to fill this gap and briefly explore possible links between these two largely isolated policy and research areas. European universities and European welfare states are closely linked today because they are heavily dependent on public funding – and the competition for public funding between the different claimants to it is on the rise. Reforms of both sectors are also closely linked to increasing intergenerational conflicts over public resources in aging societies, and pressures on both sectors are linked to the shrinking tax base, the power of the neoliberal ideology, and changing social attitudes to both welfare and universities. Problems of both sectors and solutions to them are increasingly being defined at a global level through transnational reform discourses.

RESEARCH OBJECTIVE: The scientific goal of the article is to analyze traffic safety policy, in a problem-chronological perspective, as part of the Swedish "welfare state" model, with particular emphasis on internal political and social factors.THE RESEARCH PROBLEM AND METHODS: In exploring the issues of road safety in Sweden, the author used a functionalist approach to examine the relationship of political forces affecting their shape. The genetic method has allowed to mention qualitative factors that are the foundations of Swedish policy. Institutional and normative approach with regard to the characteristics of decision-making processes, law-making processes resulted in a system analysis in line with the theoretical model proposed by David Easton. Each stage of the legislative process has been followed – from the change initiative to the entry intoforce of the "Vision Zero". The method of content analysis and the institutional and legal method served to illustrate the role that it has for Sweden for 20 years.THE PROCESS OF ARGUMENTATION: Ensuring broadly understood, multi-tasked road traffic safety is today a prerequisite for harmonious economic and social development of the country (for example, due to the cost of treatment of accident victims, but also the legitimacy of authority, whose task is to ensure safety).RESEARCH RESULTS: The necessity of introducing a nationwide road safety strategy was convinced by all the groups that sat in the Swedish parliament in 1997 (as evidenced by its voting through acclamation). The consolidation attitude of many social groups, institutions and individual road users, promoted by the Vision Zero, resulted in considerable successes. First of all, the number of fatalities in road accidents in 1997-2012 dropped by 48%. At the same time, the number of people who suffered minor injuries in the same period as a result of road accidents has increased. This testifies to the correct decisions of Swedish strategists who were already well aware in 1997 that it is impossible to eliminate accidents as such (which is why they focused on reducing the most tragic effects).CONCLUSIONS, INNOVATIONS, AND RECOMMENDATIONS: The Vision of Zero, which is now a general philosophy of approach to road safety issues in Sweden, thanks to its efficiency and effectiveness has become not only a source of pride on the part of the Swedes themselves. Few (Sweden's population for the first time reached a ceiling of 10 million inhabitants in January 2017), although the very innovative Swedish society developed an innovative model of cooperation between private and public sector entities as well as every single user of transport infrastructure that contributed to the radical decline the number of accidents resulting in death or serious injury. Thus, once again, the descendants of the Vikings became a role model for other nations – both among European Union countries and on a global scale.

Communes as the smallest units of local government in Poland are responsible for social assistance. The growing number of older people can affect the level of care expenses, including these that are spent for care in social welfare houses (SWH). The expenses of municipalities related to the residence of their inhabitants in SWH are increasing systematically, and they are becoming a substantial problem especially for communes at lower socio‑economic development level. The aim of this paper is to identify those voivodeships in which communes are and will be mostly affected in the near future by residual charges for inhabitants of SWH and to check whether this is related to the demographic situation. Statistical data analyzed in this paper were taken from public sources: Ministry of Family, Labour and Social Policy reports, and Central Statistical Office. The current situation of voivodeships in the area of population aging and the expenditures on residual charges for inhabitants of SWH were described. There was diagnosed a diversification of voivodships due to the level of expenditures connected with residual charges for inhabitants of SWH and the lack of diversification due to the participation of the elderly in the population. Basing on linear trend models there was also prepared a forecast of expenditures of communes in the perspective up to 2020. It was shown that the communes located in the warmińsko‑mazurskie voivodship would have to face the greatest level of expenditures (per capita). The expenditures per capita in this voivodeship will be more than two times of the mazowieckie voivodship's expenditures. ; Gminy jako najmniejsze jednostki samorządu terytorialnego w Polsce są odpowiedzialne za działania z zakresu pomocy społecznej. Rosnąca liczba osób starszych może wpływać na poziom wydatków związanych z zapewnieniem im opieki, w tym również tej całodobowej, świadczonej przez domy pomocy społecznej (DPS‑y). Od wielu lat systematycznie rosną wydatki gmin związane z pobytem ich mieszkańców w DPS‑ach i stanowią one coraz bardziej dotkliwy problem, zwłaszcza dla gmin o niższym poziomie rozwoju społeczno‑ekonomicznego. Celem niniejszego artykułu jest wskazanie tych województw, w których gminy są i będą w najbliższej przyszłości najbardziej obciążone z tytułu dopłat do pobytu mieszkańców w DPS‑ach, i sprawdzenie, czy ma to związek z obserwowaną w nich sytuacją demograficzną. Dane poddane analizie statystycznej pochodziły z ogólnodostępnych źródeł: sprawozdań Ministerstwa Rodziny, Pracy i Polityki Społecznej oraz opracowań Głównego Urzędu Statystycznego. Określono aktualną sytuację poszczególnych województw w zakresie starzenia się społeczeństwa oraz obciążenia wydatkami na dofinansowanie pobytu mieszkańców w DPS‑ach. Stwierdzono zróżnicowanie województw ze względu na stopień obciążenia przedmiotowymi wydatkami i brak zróżnicowania ze względu na udział osób starszych w populacji. W oparciu o modele trendu liniowego sporządzono również dla województw prognozy przedmiotowych wydatków gmin w perspektywie do 2020 roku. Wykazano, że największe obciążenie (w przeliczeniu na jednego mieszkańca) dotyczyć będzie gmin zlokalizowanych na terenie województwa warmińsko‑mazurskiego. Przypadające w tym województwie na jednego mieszkańca wydatki będą ponad dwukrotnie wyższe niż w województwie mazowieckim.

The increasing complexity of the academic enterprise in Europe is due to several general factors: globalization and Europeanization, educational expansion and massification of higher education, the economic crisis, reform pressures in the public sector, growing pressures for accountability, and knowledge-driven economic competitiveness of nations and regions. Factors generating change in national higher education policies and in national higher education systems have been multilayered, interrelated and often common throughout the continent. Reforms increasingly, and throughout Europe, lead to further reforms rather than to reformed higher education systems. Higher education has changed substantially in most European economies in the last two or three decades but it is still expected by national and European-level policymakers to change even more. Universities, throughout two centuries of their modern history, change as their environments change, especially in connection with changes in the functioning of nation-states and various forms of welfare states. Different directions of current and projected academic restructuring in different national systems add to the complexity of the picture at a European level.