Marek Kwiek

Globalization and Higher Education

The question of the role of higher education in society and culture today is linked, in this article, with two parallel processes: the questioning of the nation-state in the global age and the gradual decomposition of the welfare state in the majority of the OECD countries. What is currently happening is, erst, a major redeenition of the general responsibilities of the state vis-a`-vis the familiar type of society characterized by the welfare state and, second, a major revision in thinking about the role of the state in contemporary politics and economies brought about by globalization processes (and hence the possible demise of the nation-state). The modern German-inspired university in the form in which it exists in Europe is certainly affected by the two processes. The aim of this article is to discuss higher education in this particular context.

The Emergent European Educational Policies under Scrutiny: The Bologna Process from a Central European Perspective.

In this article, the Bologna Process and the European Research Area are viewed as the two sides of the same coin: that of the redefinition of the missions of the institution of the university. The Bologna Process is viewed as relatively closed to global developments: as largely inward-looking, focused on European regional problems (and European regional solutions), in the absence of references to global changes and huge globalization-related political and economic transformations underlying them. Higher education in central and eastern Europe has been in a state of permanent crisis since the fall of communism and there has not been enough general reflection on its transformations. The authors concern about Bologna is that it is not trying to rise to the conceptual level that would be required to assist higher education systems in central and eastern Europe with their integration with western European systems. Bologna could be a useful policy agenda; it could provide clear recommendations on what to do and how, presenting a comprehensive package of reforms. But it is not. In this respect, it does not meet expectations of the academic community in the region; it is unclear in its visions, and consequently in its recommendations for actions. In conclusion, the author states that while it may be quite successful in promoting its agenda in western Europe, it may fail in the transition countries, especially because of the combination of old and new challenges and because of chronic underfunding of national higher education systems. While western European institutions currently seem to be afraid of losing their autonomy, for educational institutions in most transition countries the Bologna Process could be a coherent reform agenda.

Universities and Knowledge Production in Central Europe

The article discusses an East/West divide in Europe in university knowledge production. It argues that the communist and post-communist legacies in the four major Central European economies studied (Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic and the Slovak Republic) matter substantially for educational and research systems. The differences in university knowledge production may be bigger than expected, and the role of historical legacies may be more long term than generally assumed in both social sciences and public policy studies on the region. The gradual convergence of both higher education and research systems in two parts of Europe cannot be taken for granted without thoughtful changes in both university funding (both modes and levels) and governance. The article discusses links between knowledge production, economic competitiveness and regulatory and other environments in which both universities and knowledge-intensive companies operate. The role of factors other than higher education and innovation systems is substantially more important for competitiveness and growth in Central Europe than in affluent Western economies. The international visibility of universities as knowledge production centres is low and the analysis of the geography of knowledge production at the level of regions may indicate that Central Europe is in danger of being effectively cut off from the emergent European Research Area.

Academe in transition: Transformations in the Polish academic profession

The period since 1989 has been an extremely dynamic one in Polish highereducation. New opportunities have opened up for the academic community,along with new challenges. Suddenly, the academic profession has arrivedat a stage that combines far-reaching autonomy with rather uncertainindividual career prospects. In recent years, a number of new laws havebeen proposed that were intended to change the whole structure ofrecruitment, promotions, remuneration, working conditions, andappointments of academic faculty. All this has occurred admidst thestrains and tensions resulting from changes in the broader society. Thesudden passage from the more or less elite higher education system tomass higher education with a strong and dynamic private sector hastransformed the situation of the academic community beyond allrecognition. The transition has resulted in a new set of values andchanges in position, tasks, and roles for academe in society. Today,the future of the Polish academic profession remains undetermined. Thepositive changes were accompanied by the chronic underfunding of publichigher education. Polish academics have learned to accommodatethemselves to the permanent state of uncertainty in which they areforced to operate. The present paper analyzes the current situation fromthe perspective of global changes affecting the academic profession.

From System Expansion to System Contraction: Access to Higher Education in Poland

Access to higher education in Poland is changing due to the demography of smaller cohorts of potential students. Following a demand-driven educational expansion after the collapse of communism in 1989, the higher education system is now contracting. Such expansion/contraction and growth/decline in European higher education has rarely been researched, and this article can thus provide a possible scenario for what might occur in other European postcommunist countries. On the basis of an analysis of microlevel data from the European Union Survey on Income and Living Conditions, I highlight the consequences of changing demographics for the dilemmas of public funding and admissions criteria in both public and private sectors.

The University and the State in a Global Age: Renegotiating the Traditional Social Contract?.

This article is based on the Keynote Address to the European Conference on Educational Research (ECER), Dublin, Ireland, 7–10 September 2005. It argues that we are facing the simultaneous renegotiation of the major post-war social contract (concerning the welfare state) in Europe and the renegotiation of a smaller-scale modern social pact: the pact between the university and the nation-state. It suggests that the current, and especially future, transformations of the university are not fully clear outside of the context of transformations to the state (and to the public sector) under global pressures. These pressures, both directly and indirectly, will not leave the university as an institution unaffected. Thus it is more useful today than ever before to discuss the future of the university in the context of the current transformations of the state. The study is divided into four sections: a brief introduction; a section on the university and the welfare state in Europe; a section on the university and the nation-state in Europe; and tentative conclusions.

Academic Entrepreneurship vs. Changing Governance and Institutional Management Structures at European Universities

This article discusses academic entrepreneurship in the context of ongoing changes in university management and governance in European universities. The comparative perspective is provided by the European Union (EU) research project ‘European Universities for Entrepreneurship: Their Role in the Europe of Knowledge’ (EUEREK) comprising seven European countries, and it draws heavily from ideas and research results of Burton Clark, Michael Shattock and Gareth Williams. It views transformations in university governance and management in the context of the recent emphasis by the European Commission (EC) on the vital role of changes in institutional governance and its ‘modernisation agenda for universities’. The article presents a general discussion of the ECs prioritisation of areas of transformation of European universities in which governance structures figure prominently, discusses the role of risk-taking at entrepreneurial institutions and shows the role of risk management. It also discusses the clash of old academic and new managerial values at entrepreneurial universities and the traditional academic idea of collegiality. Finally, conclusions are drawn regarding the future of public institutions in Europe.

The Nation-State, Globalisation and the Modern Institution of the University

1. Thinking about the „identity crisis” of the modern institution of the university, I was wondering about the following most general questions: does the current passage to late modernity and to the information age, the decline of the role of the nation-state and the increasing power of processes of globalization mean the inevitability of the radical reformulation of the social mission and tasks of the institution of the university? Does the university (in North America and Central Europe alike) come through the transitory crisis of public trust and of its founding values or through the dramatic crisis of its own identity in a radically new global order? Is it so that in the face of globalization and its social practices the process of the „corporatization” of the university and the account of its activities in terms of business rather than education are irresistible? Is the response to the decreasing public trust in and decreasing financial support of higher education generally on the part of the state to be found in new ideas (by reformulating once again the philosophical foundations of the modern university) or in its new organization (by following the explicit recommendations provided by such supranational organizations as the OECD, the World Bank, or UNESCO)? Surprisingly enough, these questions are of equal significance to North America and to a Central and Eastern Europe experiencing vast social and economic transformation. In both parts of the world the most common reflection upon the future functioning of higher education is the following: „things will never be the same”.

Structural changes in the Polish higher education system (1990–2010): a synthetic view

The paper locates the past two decades of changes in Polish universities in a comparative European context. It shows a wider transition: from an expanding, privatized and disciplinarily divided university of the 1990s to a publicly funded, increasingly contracting and stratified university of the 2000s (and beyond). The gradual political and economic integration of Poland with the European Union has been accompanied by the gradual integration of the Polish higher education system with Western European systems. The paper argues that the major emergent parameter of higher education policy is demographics and that the remonopolization of the system by the tax-based public sector and the gradual decline of the private sector are transforming the system beyond recognition. Processes of ‘de-privatization’ or ‘re-publicization’ are gradually replacing recent processes of ‘privatization’. Powerful systemic changes in university governance and funding modes are bound to shatter the relative stability of the academic profession. After two decades of being fundamentally different due to the communist legacy (i.e. being ‘post-communist’), selected Polish universities, owing to accelerating processes of academic stratification linked to the 2009–2012 wave of reforms, have a chance to become fully blown elements of a European knowledge production landscape, with increasingly similar governance and funding regimes and the similarly research-involved academic profession.

The Internationalization of Research in Europe. A Quantitative Study of 11 National Systems from a Micro-Level Perspective

This article focuses on the impact of international research collaboration on individual research productivity in 11 European countries. Research productivity and international publication co-authorship of “internationalists” and “locals” (or academics collaborating and not collaborating internationally) are compared. The article uses a micro-level (individual) approach and relies on the primary data collected in a comparable format through a survey from 17,211 European academics. In all countries and all clusters of academic fields studied, international collaboration in research is strongly correlated with substantially higher research productions. Internationalization increasingly plays a stratifying role, though: More international collaboration tends to mean higher publishing rates and those who do not collaborate internationally may be losing more than ever before in terms of resources and prestige in the process of “accumulative disadvantage.” The competition is becoming a permanent feature of the European research landscape, and local prestige combined with local publications may no longer suffice in the race for resources and academic recognition. Cross-disciplinary and cross-national differences apply but our study shows a powerful role of internationalization of research for both individual research productivity and the competitiveness of national research outputs.