The Bologna Process put in motion a series of reforms for higher education. In Germany, the "Bologna reform" focused national standards and guidelines which served as criteria for obligatory programme accreditation by external bodies. This article reports on the results of an empirical study that examined the effects and limitations of…

Bologna reform eulogies and protests tend to focus on the benefits and shortcomings of the new two-tier curricula, their implementation and orientation. In this article, an assessment of the Bologna reforms is made in terms of their larger and less widely discussed systemic and institutional effects--which go far beyond the original reformers'…

Since the mid 1980s, modernising university governance has been a constant item on the political agenda of most countries, often followed by reforms attempting to change how universities are managed and led. However, when considering the effects of the many initiatives taken, a rather complex picture appears with respect to the scope and depths of…

Higher education in the United States has received much scrutiny in the recent past from the federal and state governments, the press and the general public. In response to this scrutiny, a number of blue ribbon panels have been formed to examine how effectively higher education is serving American society. In this article, I analyse the…

In the past decade, based on a change in paradigms in university policy, performance funding on a cantonal and central state level has been introduced in Switzerland: the universities have been granted higher autonomy, combined with global budgets and contract management by the responsible authorities (cantonal authorities). At the same time, the…

Dialogue between the leaders of academic clinical organisations in different countries has revealed that the core elements of the partnership between universities and health care systems are remarkably consistent across national boundaries. There is now an impetus to move beyond analysis of common challenges and towards strategies for success that…