Suchergebnisse

The study focuses on multi-level and multi-actor characteristics of European governance, concentrating on six European stakeholder organizations in the area of higher education (HE) and research. It analyses how policy positions change over time and how such changes can be accounted for, juxtaposing (1) environmental influence linked to structuration of the European HE policy arena as an organizational field and (2) internal organizational dynamic. Policy positions are seen to comprise three elements – policy issues, policy preferences and normative basis. Theoretically, the study is grounded in policy analysis, interest groups and neo-institutionalism. The empirical material consists of policy documents, subjected to both quantitative and qualitative content analysis. The study identifies changes in policy positions of stakeholder organizations, resulting in both differences and similarities, though the latter do not emerge over time in a way that suggests straightforward convergence. Thus, further research into specificities of policy-making processes within these organizations is necessary.

This paper provides analysis on how teachers and students of four universities in Serbia (Belgrade, Novi Sad, Nis, and Kragujevac) perceive problems with efficiency of studying, with respect to the new, 'Bologna' organisation of studies. The empirical foundation for this paper is composed of questionnaires distributed to students and teachers of the five aforementioned institutions and a semi-structured in-depth interview with students and teachers of the two faculties of the University of Belgrade. The results presented point to key factors affecting efficiency of studying, as well as structural changes in power relations between different social actors.

Regional cooperation in the higher education policy sector has been on the rise throughout the last decades. In this article, we compare and analyse two instances of higher education regionalisms (i.e. political projects of higher education region creation) in Europe and South-East Asia from an ideational perspective. In so doing, we engage with and challenge the diffusion argument common in both European higher education studies ('Bologna Process export thesis') and new comparative regionalism. Using publicly accessible documents from regional bodies active in higher education policy coordination, and 53 semi-structured interviews with key policy actors involved in these developments, we identify the policy ideas of European and South-East Asian higher education regionalisms, and consider whether the extant models of regional cooperation and the knowledge discourse affected their evolution. Our findings indicate that the 'Bologna Process export thesis' and the diffusion assumptions of comparative regionalism are too simplistic and misleading. We conclude with suggestions for scholars interested in new comparative regionalism.

In: Curaj A., Deca L., Pricopie R. (eds). (2018). European Higher Education Area: The Impact of Past and Future Policies. Cham: Springer. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-77407-7_20 ; With massification and increasing focus on knowledge as the foundation for inclusive and sustainable social, cultural, political as well as economic development, higher education has become more salient and politicized (Busemeyer et al. 2013; Gornitzka and Maassen 2014; Jungblut 2015). In this chapter, we employ a novel framework (Chou et al. 2017) that provides the analytical precision required to dissect and examine these developments and unpack their implications for the future development of the European Higher Education Area (EHEA). ; publishedVersion

This study analyses how different types of system-level (or 'landscape') structural reforms in higher education have been designed and implemented in selected higher education systems. In the 12 case studies that form the core of the project, the researchers examine reforms aimed at: - Increasing horizontal differentiation between different types of higher education institutions (for example reforms to introduce or modify the role of universities of applied science); - Increasing vertical differentiation through increasing or decreasing positional or status differences between higher education institutions (for example, reforms aimed at concentrating research in a limited number of universities) and; - Changing institutional interrelationships between higher education institutions (for example, through mergers, the formation of associations of institutions). In each case, the researchers set out to understand the origins and objectives of the reforms examined, the why they were designed and implemented, the extent to which they achieved their objectives and the factors affecting success or failure. The overall objective is to provide policy makers at the European, national and institutional levels with policy relevant conclusions concerning the design, implementation and evaluation of structural reforms