Several education hubs have emerged in the last decade in Asia and the Middle East. These ambitious policy initiatives share a common interest in cross-border higher education even though diverse rationales underpin their development. While some claim to be an international education hub, others claim to be a regional education hub or…

This study examines factors that deter students in Austria, Germany, Switzerland and the Netherlands from studying abroad. Using an adaptation of the Rubicon model of action phases, the path to gaining study abroad experience is conceptualised as a process involving two thresholds: the decision threshold and the realisation threshold. Theoretical…

Academic corruption in China's higher education institutions has become a serious issue in the last decade. This paper provides a critical discussion of the Chinese Ministry of Education's policy developments aimed to strengthen academic ethics and control academic corruption. It suggests that while the reactions of policy-makers to the apparent…

Privatization trends in higher education have typically been analyzed from the perspective of the institution and its relationship with the sponsoring state. The recent phenomenon of international cross-border higher education, however, represents a more complicated picture of privatization. Geographic separation from the sponsoring state is an…

This article addresses the diverging policies of England and Scotland since 1999 on the issue of tuition fees. While the UK Parliament has introduced (and henceforth enhanced the level of) tuition fees for students at English universities, the Scottish Parliament has refuted fees in two successive stages. In this article I trace the political…

All Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries have experienced an unprecedented expansion in higher education during the second half of the twentieth century. This was only possible because higher education became part of national welfare policies. OECD countries differ, however, with respect to the significance of…

This paper presents the findings of a national survey of student satisfaction with undergraduate teaching in a sample of universities and colleges in China. The results show that while a high proportion of academic staff participates in undergraduate teaching, levels of student satisfaction are low. The lowest levels of student satisfaction are…

Are the central pedagogical concepts and practices of the Humboldtian university, with "Bildung" as the overarching goal, only part of an elitist history of the university in the past or may they still be of relevance for the 21st century? What processes are involved in fostering "Bildung" then and now? This article…

The compatibility between the Humboldtian principles and the Bologna reform programme is essentially contested. The article traces debates on the Humboldtian university and the Bologna process and explores theoretical, methodological and normative aspects of these debates and the relations between the Bologna process and the Humboldtian ideals.…

This article discusses the meanings of quality in the Humboldtian university ideal and in the Bologna process, especially related to issues of institutional autonomy, academic freedom and the integration of teaching and research. The article gives an overview of current practices associated with quality and quality assurance in Germany and Norway.…

Higher education is the education level under the most pressure to be internationally liberalized. Currently, the main global instrument to achieve this liberalization goal is the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) of the World Trade Organization. In this paper, the process of trade liberalization of higher education in the GATS…

During recent decades master's studies have mainly become professional, but in some countries, like Israel, they still are a stepping stone toward doctorate studies. Changes in that respect may however occur due to recent university marketization processes. Using Tel Aviv University as a case study, we focus on the executive master's programmes…

This article describes and analyses changes made in the organisation of higher education studies in Germany and Norway, following the recommendations of the Bologna Declaration. In both countries, the characteristic modes of university study have been circumscribed by the tradition of Humboldtian values and ideals, albeit to a different extent. On…

In response to growing public and policy concern about conflicts of interest (COI) in university research, academic institutions in North America and Europe have introduced policies to manage COI. However, depending on their form and content, COI policies can be more or less helpful in the effective management of COI. In this paper, we examine and…

This article reports on a comparative case study of the role played by local universities and public research organizations in the development of local capabilities for innovation in two key gateways to the North Sea oil and gas province: the Stavanger region on the southwest coast of Norway and the Aberdeen region in northeast Scotland. These two…