Catálogo de publicaciones - libros

Over two decades, the European Higher Education Area (EHEA) has developed reforms on higher education on the basis of the values of freedom of expression, academic freedom and institutional autonomy, independent students’ unions, and free movement for students and staff. The challenge was not helped by the economic crisis which created challenges for public funding of higher education institutions, pressure for enhanced accountability, and pressure on institutions to directly respond to economic priorities. In recent years, we have also been faced with a political crisis which has witnessed the growth of anti-establishment populist politics and a level of political volatility that has not been seen for generations. This has led to a fear we are in the midst of ‘post-truth’ politics in which appeals are based on raw emotion amplified uncritically through social media. Higher education institutions, from their cloistered origins to their current more public role, have always had knowledge and understanding at their heart, but that role now has to focus on more than the knowledge economy and refocus on its civic and democratic role. The paper will argue that, in the face of current challenges, the EHEA should renew its commitment to its core principles by recognizing the importance of its civic and social role, and restating the importance of the free and informed exchange of ideas and knowledge that lie at the heart of democratic culture and society, and are central to the third mission of universities.

This chapter provides an analysis of the evolution of institutional autonomy and academic freedom in Europe since the launch of the Bologna Process and the European Higher Education Area (EHEA). It points to evidence suggesting diverging paths within and between these two areas of university governance. The emergence of a European notion and model of institutional autonomy is one of the most remarkable developments of the period. Although young, this model is already consequential in Europe and it has acquired prominence beyond its borders as well. University autonomy has attracted a lot of attention in the higher education scholarship, policy thinking and regulatory reforms on the continent. Academic freedom, on the other hand, is a largely disregarded and underdeveloped area. At present, the very understanding of the concept of academic freedom and, to some extent, university autonomy is a confused one. A case can be made that they both require attention and that we may need to rethink them afresh in Europe. What is the stake is not primarily a theoretical or conceptual matter, but a practical and moral one.

The proposed paper focuses on the impact of demographic decline on the way in which three Central and Eastern European (CEE) higher education systems have been engaging with social issues such as access and equity. The key premise of this paper is that governments, universities and national economies in the CEE region are faced with significant challenges brought about by dwindling numbers of students and graduates and are increasingly forced to reform existing policies and practices. Significantly, shrinking student numbers have put pressure on universities to enhance inclusion in order to better co-opt previously under-represented groups. The paper will specifically look into the cases of Romania, Russia and Poland, three of the largest countries in the region. It will build-up on previous research and use semi-structured interviews with key actors in the three countries’ higher education systems. It will employ the comparative approach of contrast of contexts. The main research goals of the paper are: The findings of the proposed paper would be important in the light of the expanding number of countries facing declining student populations due to demographic decline.

The Bologna Process has brought radical change to Higher Education policy and practice at both the European and national level. It has built trust between systems, enabled mobility of students and staff, and the recognition of credits and degrees throughout the EHEA. However, the Bologna Process and its philosophy can only function through effective commitment to its implementation. As a voluntary process with a limited legislative framework it relies on national policymakers, institutions, staff, students and stakeholders to effectively implement the strategic tools of the process; as once countries have committed to it, it is arguably no longer voluntary to implement the commitments they signed up for. In recent years there has been increasing concern about the level and nature of implementation of the Bologna commitments in many of its member countries. Incomplete implementation can easily undermine the entire system, destroy its credibility and might, in the end, bring about a two-tiered or even a multi-tiered EHEA, with a non-functioning Bologna Process at its empty core. At the EHEA Ministerial Conference in Yerevan in 2015 these concerns were strongly expressed, and the 2015–2018 work program has put increased emphases on implementation of Bologna commitments, as well as the monitoring of the fundamental values of the Bologna Process. This presentation will discuss challenges faced in introducing increased monitoring to a collegial collaboration, and how the success of this work may in the long run determine the eventual survival or extinction of both the Bologna Process and the European Higher Education Area.

This chapter analyses some unintended outcomes and challenges, such as the emergence of sub-circuits for student mobility, the increase of private providers, and corruption in higher education occurred in the European Higher Education Area (EHEA) and the Association of South-East Asian Nations’ (ASEAN) Common Space for Higher Education. These unintended outcomes constitute the vulnerability, disengagement or superficial conformity to regional agreements of newer member countries. The chapter asks what causes unintended outcomes in the regional processes and why the peripheral status of newer members continues to persist to the detriment of regional integration. Drawing on empirical data of national higher education reforms in newer members and comparing regional projects in Asia and Europe, the author argues that the dysfunction and transformation of nation-states and weak governance structures can be seen as causes of these unintended outcomes. Furthermore, new sub-regional economic projects and influx of multiple international influences also cause façade conformity and complex reconfigurations of higher education systems in the newer members. Understanding of different unintended outcomes and their causes will help devise future priorities for the EHEA and ASEAN.

Concerns about quality and standards, effectiveness and efficiency, and regulation and governance (within institutions and at the system level) are now matters which concern constituencies far beyond the jurisdiction of higher education. Once the number of people participating in and served by higher education expands, so as to begin to comprise and affect the whole of society rather than a narrow elite, then matters of higher education governance and management, and performance and productivity necessarily comes to the fore. While quality and pursuit of excellence are institutional strategic goals, they are also national and global goals—and lie at the heart of the Bologna Process and the EHEA. This paper reviews some of the issues and tensions driving the accountability and transparency agenda and asks if our existing systems are (still) fit for purpose? Can traditional forms of academic accountability, such as quality assurance and accreditation, continue to deliver public assurance of the quality of institutional performance or are new/different forms required? How do we balance different perspectives with expanding societal demands? There are three sections. Part 1 situates growing concerns about accountability and transparency in the context of the massification, internationalisation and globalisation of higher education. Part 2 discusses some theoretical and policy issues, looking at Ireland as an example of the overall trend. Part 3 concludes with a review of emerging questions around quality, performance and accountability in the global era.

Reliable information and transparency on the benefits that higher education institutions offer their students, funders and communities are key to their legitimacy, their funding and their competitiveness. Worldwide, relationships between governmental authorities and higher education institutions are changing, particularly because of the increased demands for transparency about outcomes and impacts of higher education. In our contribution, we discuss three higher education ‘transparency tools’: accreditation, rankings and—briefly—performance contracts. We present some recent developments regarding these tools in the broader context of governance and policy-making and analyse how they aim to address the growing need for more transparency. The transparency tools are part of a recently emerging governance paradigm in higher education, networked governance; a paradigm that explicitly acknowledges the diverse information needs of a wide variety of higher education stakeholder groups.

Since the early 1990s, tremendous changes have occurred in the landscape of higher education in East Asian higher education systems, including both Japan and China. One of these changes is the emergence of national frameworks of quality assurance (QA) of higher education and an increasing emphasis on transparency of higher education. Truly, western ideas and practices on shaping the current QA of higher education in the two countries are evident and considerable, but both Japan and China have formed their own national QA systems of higher education, including transparency instruments over the past two decades. Previous studies have suggested that very limited research has been conducted on the relationship of transparency or accountability of higher education with existing schemes of QA of higher education in the two countries and what role(s) transparency plays in QA higher education systems of the two countries. Much less is known of what main instruments are used to seek for or to enhance transparency of higher education, and especially what effects the transparency instruments have had on institutions and teaching & research activities, and students learning outcomes. The purpose of this study is to discuss historical background, major characteristics, issues, and especially effects of the transparency instruments of higher education in Japan and China based on the analysis of documentation, relevant findings from national surveys and fieldwork. This paper addresses three main research questions as follows:

This paper describes the thinking behind the development of an improved tool to measure the performance of the postsecondary system in Ontario. The rationale is relevant to other jurisdictions. Ontario’s public higher-education system consists of 24 community colleges and 20 universities and constitutes 40% of higher-education enrolments in Canada. HEQCO has a legislated mandate to conduct performance assessments of the postsecondary sector and to make these evaluations public. In contrast to the approach of others who use a broad range of performance indicators, we are developing a performance measurement tool with a very limited number of indicators that are tied directly to the high priority goals of the Ontario government and that are designed to assess the effectiveness and impact of government policies and actions (e.g., tuition, financial aid, funding formulas, institutional differentiation). The instrument will measure system performance, not that of individual institutions (or their ranking). This approach, which measures only what matters, forces definition and measurement of the most relevant, meaningful and revealing measures. The indicators address equity of access, sustainability of institutions and academic quality, the three highest priorities for the postsecondary system in Ontario. The indicators selected reflect outcomes and impact, not inputs. Academic quality was the domain hardest to measure but our bias was to measures that are direct, embedded, meaningful to students and government, and validated by the institutions. We describe significant research trials we are currently conducting to determine the best and most efficient ways of obtaining these academic quality measures that, in our view, should form the centrepiece of any instrument that purports to measure the performance of a higher-education system or institutions.

There has been significant growth in the UK over the last thirty years in the number and variety of transparency tools designed to provide assessments of the performance of universities, their staffs, students and other contributing partners. The transparency tools available to stakeholders in the UK and wider European Union fall into five categories.

These different types of transparency tool focus with different degrees of resolution on inputs, like money and staffing, processes like teaching, supervision, learning and assessment, as well as outputs and outcomes, like completion rates, employment levels, further study, impact, subsequent earnings or wider measures of social benefit. This paper will describe how higher education stakeholders in Wales have shaped or not the development of these transparency tools. The research questions addressed are as follows: (a) What are the key features of the transparency tools available? (b) Where and when were they developed and by whom? (c) Which of these tools are used, how and by which stakeholders? (d) How do the different tools interact with one another? (e) How have new tools been layered on existing tools? (f) Finally, how have these tools and measures changed and been re-rationalised over time? The paper will end with a comment on how the pattern of current practices may change in the wake of the passage of the Welsh Welfare of Future Generations Act (2015) and the publication of the Diamond and Hazelkorn reports on student finance and the oversight of higher education, as well as the influence of the English Higher Education and Research Act (2017) on practice across the UK, including Wales.