Access to and Experiences of Higher Education Across Europe: The Impact of Social Characteristics

Policymakers across Europe have increasingly emphasised the importance of paying close attention to the social dimension of higher education and taking further steps to ensure that the composition of Europe’s universities more adequately reflects the diversity of the wider population. While there have been a number of studies that have explored this through analyses of European- and national-level policy and others that have assessed a range of quantitative indicators related to student diversity, this chapter assumes, in contrast, an interpretivist stance; it is interested in the perspectives of those studying and working ‘on the ground’ within the European Higher Education Area. Specifically, we seek to answer this research question: To what extent do students and staff, across Europe, believe that higher education access and experiences are differentiated by social characteristics (such as class/family background, race/ethnicity/migration background, gender and age)? In doing so, we draw on data from a large European Research Council-funded project, including 54 focus groups with undergraduate students (a total of 295 individuals) and 72 in-depth individual interviews with members of higher education staff (both academic and non-academic). Fieldwork was conducted in three higher education institutions in each of the following countries: Denmark, UK-England, Germany, Ireland, Poland and Spain—nations chosen to provide diversity with respect to welfare regime, relationship to the European Union and mechanisms for funding higher education. We explore commonalities and differences between staff and students and between different countries, before identifying some implications for policymakers keen to promote further social inclusion within Europe’s higher education institutions (HEIs).

Drivers for Internationalization in Georgian Higher Education

Internationalization of higher education has been on the rise almost everywhere in Europe for the past two decades, from countries like the United Kingdom that have put higher education at the heart of their export strategy (An overview of the higher education exports and their value to the United Kingdom economy is provided by the debate on 19 July 2018 in the House of Lords available at https://lordslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/lln-2018-0079/.) to countries in Eastern Europe which are relatively active in student mobility but less internationalized in other areas (faculty profiles, research outputs, institutional expansion abroad). However, as a result of many factors, including an unprecedented number of European students benefitting from free and quality higher education available in other countries, and the strengthening of economic nationalism, we see a refocus in internationalization in many Western countries. This study investigates the drivers of internationalization in Georgian universities. Data was collected through interviews with Georgian ministry officials, heads of governmental agencies, rectors and faculty from Georgian universities in addition to documents and web sites analysis. This study presents an insight into national, institutional and individual drivers for internationalization in Georgia and the challenges experienced.

Regional Mobility in Europe: The Importance of CEEPUS Based on Hungarian Evidence

The Central European Exchange Programme for University Studies (CEEPUS) was founded more than 25 years ago with the aim of supporting the strategic role of the region by academic and further cooperation among the Central, Eastern and Balkan States of Europe. Its framework covers mobility grants for students and teachers within academic networks designed to operate joint programmes and degrees. The importance and impact of CEEPUS are less researched and highlighted compared to the European Union flagship Erasmus Programme, but its results and potential made a comeback to international political agendas and are an actual topic on policy forums. The current scheme is secured only until 2025. Therefore, this research intends to support decision and policymaking processes for future planning by presenting the outcomes of programme participation and necessary changes for improvement and to answer whether the CEEPUS is still needed besides the Erasmus+ and other mobility programs. Hungary is among the founders and one of the most important member states considering the allocated grants, the number of professional networks and mobilities—that make the processed sample representative and valuable.

Taking Stock of the Bologna Process at 20: The Possibilities and Limits of Soft Law Governance

The Bologna Process stands as both an exemplar of regional cooperation in the higher education policy sector and as a comparatively successful instance of the use of so-called ‘soft law governance’ policy instruments. While the formal launch of the European Higher Education Area (EHEA) in 2010 represents a significant milestone in the process, it nevertheless left many politically sensitive questions unanswered. Today, as this pan-European process now marks two decades of existence, many of the questions concerned with the direction and purpose of the process are being addressed with increasing urgency. Against this background, the present paper specifically focuses on recent debates surrounding the (non-)implementation of key commitments; on the functioning of the EHEA as a policy forum in relation to both its own membership and the wider international higher education policy landscape; and on the manner in which the EHEA may respond to increasingly serious challenges to the fundamental values that underpin the process. The authors draw on both the substantial body of scholarship that has emerged on the process and practitioner insights to examine its past achievements and current challenges, while having in mind the specificity of the EHEA as a policy process in a complex European context. Finally, the paper underlines the need for a more nuanced understanding of the EHEA governance model, based on an overall balance sheet that suggests the likely direction(s) of the process going forward.

The European Universities Initiative: A Study of Alliance Formation in Higher Education

This chapter explores the origins, rationales and design of the European Universities Initiative (EUI), a new scheme to create a series of multilateral university alliances. The idea of creating a supranational university can be traced back to the beginnings of the European political project in the late 1940s, but despite various endeavours, this ambition remained unfulfilled. The chapter places the EUI within this long-running debate and focuses on the period following French President Macron’s 2017 Sorbonne speech which advocated a new network of universities. This provided the impetus to reignite the supranational university debate and subsequently resulted in the launch of the EUI pilot phase. The chapter explains why the EUI succeeded where previous attempts at a European university over the preceding 70 years had stalled. The analysis finds the EUI to be a novel form of alliance formation which can be viewed as a ‘network of networks’. Considering the design of the EUI, how the alliances have the potential to generate collaborative advantage for their members is considered, which also identifies some of the challenges that lie ahead for the scheme.

The Integration of Experiential Learning in Higher Education Institutions—An Assessment of the Romanian Universities

This paper presents how Romanian educational strategies are aligned with the policy statements of international organisations for future generations. The research hypothesis is that Romanian higher education institutions (HEI) are not ready to fulfil the needs of future generations. The paper reviews the educational competences of fourteen faculties of public administration and management from nine universities (state and private). The analysis is based on Kolb’s experiential learning cycle elements, and we identified whether educational competences referred directly to them or not. Our findings concentrate on the lack of recognition of experiential learning methods and the gap between the labour market requirements and the educational competences acquired in Romanian HEI. The methodology used to respond to the research questions mixes qualitative (strategies and literature review, structured interviews) and quantitative approaches (assessment of the curricula and information presented in the admission process by Faculties of Public Administration and Management).

What Does It Take to Build a Social Dimension Strategy? A Cross-Country Comparative Analysis of Romania and Austria

Unlike other action lines of the Bologna Process, slow progress has been made towards making the social dimension an implementable policy. The social dimension had to overcome a significant start-up difficulty. It entered the Bologna Process with no clear definition, guidelines or projection of concrete policy measures. In 2015, with the adoption of the Strategy for the Development of the Social Dimension and Lifelong Learning in the EHEA to 2020, participating countries were asked to come up with concrete national plans to address the participation of underrepresented groups in higher education. This paper looks in depth at two country cases that attempted to create the necessary conditions for such strategies, Austria and Romania, and asks what are the successful conditions for building a social dimension and lifelong learning strategy in line with the Bologna requirements? The common point for these countries is that both of them attempted to build a social dimension and life-long learning strategy, however, one of the countries came up with a strategy, yet other national strategies and policies were in contradiction with what the strategy promoted, whereas in the second country no strategy was developed beside the involvement of the main stakeholders. The data for the analysis comes from interviews conducted in November 2017 with stakeholders involved in the formation of these strategies, ranging from student representatives to educational experts, and governmental representatives.

Advancing Learning and Teaching in the EHEA: Innovation and Links with Research

Education, a core mission of universities, is frequently depicted as being resistant towards change regarding teaching methods and forms of provision. As Hooker put it, back in 1997, “the nineteenth-century model of teaching at higher level still holds sway and teaching as not changed much since. The last 15 years have seen progressive developments in many higher education institutions, but the basic model has not altered significantly, at least not in the majority of institutions.

“Bologna Digital”—Actively Shaping the Digital Transformation in European Higher Education

Digital transformation will impact the European Higher Education Area (EHEA) and could contribute to developing a new vision for the Bologna Process and for higher education in Europe and beyond. In recent years, research on European and national levels has shown increasing attention being paid to digitalisation and digital transformation by higher education leadership. The 2015 and 2018 Ministerial Communiqués also clearly emphasised the importance of the topic for the EHEA. Yet, a strategic integration of digitalisation into higher education policy and practice remains hard to find. This is for two main reasons: (1) because although digitalisation is often seen as a technical innovation, it must, in fact, be a social innovation for it to have any impact and (2) because higher education as a field of practice, especially in Europe, is a multi-layered system where strategic impact is only possible if all layers are broadly following the same objectives. With reference to policy theory, the authors conjectured that reducing goal conflict and practice ambiguity would help to facilitate a more integrative digital policy and practice. With this aim, the authors launched a White Paper in 2019 to facilitate broad agreement on the potential of digitalisation within the Bologna framework. This contribution provides an interim evaluation of the initiative and its next steps. In this, it provides a reflexive review of how practitioners and researchers in the field might hope to influence policymaking and practice in the area of digitalisation.

Addressing Career Services’ Internationalisation Challenges Through Transnational Consortia

Providing high quality education and student experience is critical to attracting and retaining students in an increasingly competitive environment. Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) are under growing pressure to ‘guarantee’ their graduates’ employability and successful access to the labour market. On the other hand, with the increase of international student mobility in the past few decades, a new student profile has emerged, which includes broader professional perspectives in geographical terms. One of the challenges for HEIs is, therefore, to develop their graduates’ relevant skills and support them with structures that ease their integration into the local, national or international labour market.The aim of this paper is to outline both the current context and status of the internationalisation of European career services and the main challenges faced in this process. An exploratory single case analysis is used to identify how the formation of international career service consortia could contribute to overcoming some of the challenges, especially in terms of resource efficiency and international network development and reach.