Peter Maassen

Higher Education Policy. An International Comparative Perspective

Higher education policy in international perspective: an overview (L. Goedegebuure, F. Kaiser, P. Maassen, E. de Weert). Higher education policy in Australia (L. Meek). Higher education policy in Califomia (W. Fox). Higher education policy in Denmark (P. Bache, P. Maassen). Higher education policy in France (F. Kaiser, G. Neave). Higher education policy in Germany (E. Frackman, E. de Weert). Higher education policy in Japan (A. Arimoto, E. de Weert). Higher education policy in the Netherlands (L. Goedegebuure, F. Kaiser, P. Maassen, E. de Weert). Higher educational policy in Ontario (G. Jones). Higher education policy in Sweden (G. Svanfeldt). Higher education policy in Switzerland (K. Weber). Higher education policy in the United Kingdom (J. Brennan, T. Shah). International perspectives on trends and issues in higher education policy (L. Goedegebuurre, F. Kaiser, P. Maassen, L. Meek, F. Van Vught, E. de Weert).

European integration and the governance of higher education and research

List of Contributors. Preface ALBERTO AMARAL AND PETER MAASSEN. INTRODUCTION. European Integration and the Europeanisation of Higher Education PETER MAASSEN AND CHRISTINE MUSSELIN. PART I - THE MANY FACES AND LEVELS OF HIGHER EDUCATION POLICY MAKING IN THE EUROPEAN UNION. The Bologna Process as Alpha or Omega, Or, On Interpreting History and Context as Inputs to Bologna, Prague, Berlin and Beyond GUY NEAVE. Process, Persistence and Pragmatism: Reconstructing the Creation of the European University Institute and the Erasmus Programme, 1955-89 ANN CORBETT. Boomerangs and Trojan Horses: The Unintended Consequences of Internationalising Education Policy Through the EU and the OECD KERSTIN MARTENS AND KLAUS DIETER WOLF. Networking Administration in Areas of National Sensitivity: The Commission and European Higher Education ASE GORNITZKA. Policy Implementation Tools and European Governance AMELIA VEIGA AND ALBERTO AMARAL. The Mission Impossible of the European University: Institutional Confusion and Institutional Diversity JURGEN ENDERS AND HARRY DE BOER. PART II - BENEATH THE ARROW: THE RESPONSE OF HIGHER EDUCATION SYSTEMS AT THE NATIONAL LEVEL. The Side Effects of the Bologna Process on National Institutional Settings: The Case of France CHRISTINE MUSSELIN. The Implementation of the Bologna Process in Italy ROBERTO MOSCATI. Europeanisation of Higher Education Governance in the Post-communist Context: The Case of the Czech Republic PETR PABIAN. Parallel Universes and Common Themes: Reforms of Curricular Governance in the Bologna Context JOHANNA WITTE. CONCLUSIONS. On Bologna, Weasels and Creeping Competence ALBERTO AMARAL AND GUY NEAVE.

European Debates on the Knowledge Institution: The Modernization of the University at the European Level

The European University, as a key institution, is under stress. It has become commonplace to argue that urgent and radical reforms are needed. The claim is that while environments are changing rapidly, universities do not learn, adapt and reform themselves fast enough. Reform plans comprise the purposes of universities, i.e. definitions of what the University is, can be and should be, criteria for quality and success, the kinds of research, education and services to be produced, and for whom. Reform plans also include the universities’ organization and financial basis, their governance structures, who should influence the future dynamics of universities, and according to what principles. In contrast, it can be argued that the currently dominant reform rhetoric is only one among several competing visions and understandings of the University and its dynamics. What is at stake is “what kind of University for what kind of society” and which, and whose values, interests and beliefs should be given priority in University governance and reforms? The paper presents a framework for analyzing ongoing ‘modernization’ reforms and reform debates that take place at various governance levels, not least the European level. It is part of a forthcoming book on ‘University Dynamics and European Integration’.

Global Reform Trends in Higher Education

Towards the end of the 1980s the contours of a ‘new world order’ became more and more visible. Its rise was marked by the collapse of communist regimes and the increasing political hegemony of neo-liberal market ideologies. These established an environment for socio-economic and political change during the 1990s that would assert considerable reform pressures on all sectors of society, higher education included. South Africa’s negotiated settlement (Kraak, 2001) or ‘implicit bargain’ (Gelb, 1998, 2001) in 1994 must not only be seen as an isolated moment of a ‘miracle transition’ at the southern tip of Africa. It was also part of a political and economic transition process on a planetary scale that a large number of analysts have tried to capture as globalisation (Castells, 2001; Held et al., 1999). Even though globalisation is a far from uncontroversial concept, there is general agreement that most nation states are going through a transformation process that is strongly affected by global trends and pressures. These trends and pressures form, for example, an important basis for national public sector reforms with respect to higher education. Globalisation impulses stem from financial markets that started operating on a global scale and from the explosion that occurred in international ‘connectedness’ – both virtual and real – mainly through the internet, mobile telephony and intensifying travel patterns. Simultaneously global and regional free trade agreements proliferated and expanded. The most important examples of these are the World Trade Organisation (WTO), the European Union (EU), the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), the Common Market of the Southern Cone (Mercosur in Latin America), the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC), and the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation Forum (APEC). These trends are also promoted through international agencies such as the United Nations and its organisations, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and the World Bank. All these ‘planetary’ changes created environments within which nation states had to consider a reorientation and repositioning of their still predominantly public higher education systems. This did not mean that governments were looking for alternatives to higher education. Instead the higher education institutions became a part of the national development policies in countries all over the world, with Finland, Ireland, and the East Asian Tigers as the prime examples. In South Africa a senior official in the new

“Europe of Knowledge:” Search for a New Pact

The subject of this paper is the institutional dynamics of the European University. How is this key institution affected by ongoing processes of European integration? What attempts are undertaken at the European level to build up institutional capacity in the areas of higher education and research policy? How do these emerging European capacities relate to the traditional national policy making responsibilities and arrangements in these areas? How is the organization and functioning of the European University influenced by the adding of a new governance layer with respect to higher education and research? How do the developments with respect to European higher education and research policy compare to the situation in other countries, especially the USA? The paper discusses five lessons presented as possible starting points for developing analytical frameworks capturing historical and contemporary university dynamics, the core of which is an interpretation of the ongoing dynamics of change in the European University as a search for a new foundational pact This is followed by a presentation of four themes for an empirical long-term research agenda addressing the above questions. The paper is part of a forthcoming book on “University Dynamics and European Integration”.

European Integration and the Europeanisation of Higher Education

European higher education is going through an important transformation. While during the first decades after the Second World War the sector experienced a period of relative stability in its basic national and institutional organisation and governance structures, more recently it has undergone far-reaching changes. Overall, the recent change dynamics represent a shift from internal to external control, consisting, amongst other things, of the introduction of externally initiated evaluation mechanisms, the professionalisation of institutional management functions and the growing pressure to be accountable to society. In addition, a change from central governmental planning and regulation of higher education to a growing reliance on a market-like competition in the steering of individual higher education institutions can be observed.

The Bologna Process: An Intergovernmental Policy Perspective

In this and the following chapter the empirical complexity of the attempts to integrate Europe as applied to the university sector, and very particularly the Bologna and Lisbon processes, will be discussed. Both chapters show that to study any single process of European integration in isolation is problematic. Under some conditions, as both Bologna and Lisbon demonstrate, reform processes interact and intertwine, if not integrate, as several partially interconnected developments intersect, cross and meld. An important foundation stone in the Bologna process can be traced back to 1988, when university leaders of Europe came together in Bologna to sign the Magna Charta Universitatum. This declaration extolled certain fundamental values of the University: academic freedom, the freedom to teach and learn, and with it, university autonomy. Ten years later (May 1998) the 800th anniversary of the Sorbonne was celebrated in Paris, during which occasion the British, French, German, and Italian Ministers responsible for higher education signed a joint declaration (the Sorbonne Declaration) aimed at harmonizing the structure of higher education in the four countries. One year later (June 1999) Ministers of Higher Education of no fewer than 29 European countries signed the so-called Bologna Declaration. Given that at that time only 15 member states made up the European Union, this was an amazing feat of intergovernmental action and commitment to a joint interest, namely the creation of an open European Higher Education Area (EHEA). The Bologna Declaration laid out policies and joint measures for establishing the EHEA. It included a schedule for achieving the joint objectives thus agreed upon, and a commtment by the Ministers of the countries involved to meet every other year for discussing and assessing progress. The pursuit of the joint policies and measures is commonly referred to as the Bologna process. The Bologna process has been one of the most studied, if not the most studied European integration attemptwith respect to theUniversity.120 However, such studies usually treat the University as an isolated phenomenon – isolated from the dynamics

Internationalisation of higher education: the gap between national policy‐making and institutional needs

The article discusses the impact of the growing emphasis on internationalisation on higher education institutions. Based on case studies of 12 Scandinavian universities and colleges, it is shown how issues related to internationalisation trigger processes of trying to enhance the institutional capacity for strategic decision‐making and institutional integration through processes of formalisation, centralisation and professionalisation. Based on the institutional history and tradition, strategic ability and institutional characteristics, the outcomes of this process still show a considerably degree of variation in the motives and institutional adaptation to internationalisation. In the conclusion, it is argued that future policy‐making in the field of internationalisation should pay attention to the diverse needs of higher education, and develop policies that allow more flexibility and autonomy at the institutional level.

Strategic decision making in higher education An analysis of the new planning system in Dutch higher education

One of the main objects of the recently developed policy for Dutch higher education regards the creation of a more diversified higher education system with flexible and adaptive institutions. The nature of the proposed system should, among other things, reveal itself in meaningful and discriminating institutional profiles, based on strategic institutional choices. This article reflects on the degree to which these objects are realized. After the introduction of the new planning system in Dutch higher education, the article deals with the possibility of strategic planning in higher education institutions in general. Three different, but not necessary independent, models are distinguished: the linear strategy model, the adaptive strategy model and the interpretive strategy model. It is argued that the latter model can be applied best to higher education institutions. Some evidence on strategic planning in Dutch higher education illustrates the practice in this field. Empirical evidence shows that the governmental aim to increase the diversity in Dutch higher education is not very successful up till now. On the contrary, it seems that various homogenizing developments emerge. The concept of institutional isomorphism helps to explain some of the problems institutions encounter when trying to formulate and implement their strategies.

The Concept of Culture and Higher Education

Introduction Since the early 1960s the concept of culture has gradually gained a prominent place in a number of social sciences, like organization theory and management studies, other than its parent discipline, anthropology. Also in studies on higher education the concept of culture has been used to explain, for example, the effectiveness of universities and colleges However, as with many prominent concepts introduced before in this field (for example, quality, effectiveness and strategy), culture is applied without a dear-cut and undisputed definition, leading to a lot of confusion as well as disagreement on the validity of its