This contribution is based on an analysis of recent changes in doctoral education that can be observed in Europe and China. It traces the policies having led to these changes and discusses related ...policy transfer. The contribution is divided into five parts. It begins by sketching recent changes in doctoral education in the framework of the European Bologna Process and the framework of Chinese higher education reforms looking at similarities and differences in the underlying rationales. The second part will elaborate on the extended policy field for doctoral education which is no longer regarded as an exclusively academic affair but has become an object of institutional management, national policy-making and - at least in Europe - supra-national agenda setting. The third part will take a closer look at the multiplication of purposes and models for doctoral education. While in Europe, altogether, nine different types of doctoral education and training can be identified, China has just started to diversify its doctoral training by adding professional degrees and (in engineering) joint doctoral programmes to the traditional pathway. The fourth part will discuss two overarching issues which are equally in the centre of debates and policy-making in Europe and in China-quality management and internationalisation of doctoral education. In the last and concluding part, we will reflect on the implications of the extended policy field and the diversification of doctoral education models in terms of the question of how this reflects on quality assurance mechanisms, who is qualified to convey the extended skills set and whether academic careers remain sufficiently attractive to attract the best and the brightest talent.
This contribution introduces the general principles of doctoral education in Germany first and then describes and discusses four key drivers of change: the increase in numbers, the diversification of ...degree models, the impact of the Bologna reforms on doctoral education, and changes induced by the COVID-19 pandemic. In the conclusions the implications of these key drivers for change in doctoral education are analysed, namely the extension of the policy field focusing on doctoral education, the gradual loss of the traditional university monopoly in terms of doctoral degree awards, the shift from the dissertation as product to the process of doctoral education and training, and finally the extension of requirements in terms of skills and ceompetences to be acquired in the process in order to make doctoral degree holders fit for non-academic labour markets.
Though the book is a contribution to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Consortium of Higher Education Researchers (CHER), it is not just about the history of the organisation as such. The ...contributions provide an account of the emergence of higher education as a field of study and research in Europe, its institutionalisation, and its relationships to higher education policy and practice.
In this article, global and other university rankings are critically assessed with regard to their unintended side effects and their impacts on the European and national landscape of universities, as ...well as on individual institutions. An emphasis is put on the effects of ranking logics rather than on criticising their methodology. Nevertheless, it is briefly outlined what rankings measure and whom they serve. The second part takes a look at impacts of rankings on the European, national and institutional level. A third part casts rankings as a particular form of transnational policy coordination which enabled the European Commission to design its own policy script with regard to rankings. In the conclusions it is argued that ranking results have, in turn, become indicators or proxies for the economic competitiveness of nations, thus making the actual reality of universities and what they are about disappear. Thus, rankings constitute a de-contextualised symbolic value which is truly postmodern and create a new material reality which is no longer related to its original.
Across the vast majority of countries women are a significant minority in senior academic positions, and as of 2013 only 17% of vice chancellors (VCs) of UK universities and 12% of German ...Universities were women. This paper discusses findings from a study consisting of interviews with eight female VCs of British and German higher education institutions. The paper takes a feminist poststructuralist approach to look at the ways in which characteristics of 'ideal' leaders in academia are discursively produced in a myriad of gendered ways, and looks at the influence of dominant academic cultures, status of institutions and national policy landscapes. From an analysis of the findings we argue that in addition to increasing the numerical proportion of women leaders in academia, work also crucially needs to be done to challenge academic cultural practices and dominant gendered conceptualisations of the 'leader'.
This contribution provides an overview of the developments of research undertaken since the mid-1990s on international higher education. The general state of research is characterised by an increase ...of theoretically and methodologically ambitious studies without a dominant disciplinary, conceptual, or methodological “home.” The main topics of research on internationalisation in higher education reach from mobility, mutual influence of higher education systems, and internationalisation of the substance of teaching and learning to institutional strategies, knowledge transfer, cooperation and competition, and national and supranational policies. The modes of inquiry are varied but have not changed much over time. A brief localisation of the role of the Journal of Studies in International Education in the context of research about internationalisation in higher education is followed by conclusions emphasising a certain amount of continuity but also a broadening of the field with an increasing number of ambitious studies. The contribution closes with a few proposals for future research.
This article describes the emergence of higher education as a field of research, scholarship and study. In the first part, the meaning of higher education as a field of research is defined ...contrasting Europe and the US. Then, the institutional basis of higher education research in Europe is analysed (learned societies, institutes and centres, professorships, journals, study programmes). In the second part, the main areas of research and knowledge production are discussed, while the third focuses on the relationships between higher education research, policy and practice. The article ends with sections on future perspectives and conclusions.
Transformation of university governance Kretek, Peter M; Dragsic, Zarko; Kehm, Barbara M
Higher education,
2013, 20130101, 1-2013, 2013-01-00, 2013-1-00, Volume:
65, Issue:
1
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
In this conceptual contribution to the study of university governance the authors will approach potential patterns of behavior of key decision-makers at central university level, i.e. roles of ...governance actors, as well as the set of factors that shape and constrain the governance actor's room of manoevre and provide avenues to explain varying role enactments through an actor analysis of members of the newly introduced university boards. In a first part the introduction and empowerment of university boards in European higher education institutions is described as a building block of the transformation of university governance. In the second part the main hypothesis derived is that, in governance practice, board members enact roles which are not only shaped and constrained by formal institutions, as given by the organizational context and regulatory structure, but also by conformable, appropriate and legitimate role expectations of central role senders. As a showcase analysis, the roles of university board members are conceptually explored. Especially in the context of recent reform processes, board members who tend to have a varied status set, very often find themselves in a troubling situation of conflicting role expectations, leading to high levels of role conflicts and role ambiguity. It is the aim of this paper to sketch and examine the factors that contribute to the different roles university board members may take (HRK / Abstract übernommen).
The first part of the article provides an overview of the changing policy contexts in Europe and North America in which doctoral education and training are embedded and points out the similarities ...and differences of the ongoing debates and concerns about doctoral education in the two world regions. The second part provides some insight into the differentiation of motives and purposes of doctoral education which has led to a differentiation of the models for doctoral education based on a clearer distinction between a research and a professional doctorate. In the third part, a number of networks, projects and initiatives concerned with reforming doctoral education are introduced to serve as an illustration of the direction current changes are taking. The last part draws some conclusions, emphasising in particular the fact that knowledge production has become a strategic resource in the emerging knowledge economies and thus an object of policy‐making and institutional management. This development tends to lead to a concentration of research and research training in fewer institutions.
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