The present research identifies the drivers of the growth of academic spin-offs (ASOs). Empirical studies have found few successful cases of ASOs from a firm-level perspective; many companies fail, and others tend to remain small without making a meaningful contribution to local economic development. Consequently, analysing the factors affecting…

Accreditation as a form of quality assurance has spread worldwide. As a result, the public and research interests have targeted the policies that developed agencies and procedures and the responses and effects of accreditation on higher education organizations and programs. However, studies on accreditation have not analyzed two core aspects: the…

This contribution is based on an analysis of recent changes in doctoral education that can be observed in Europe and China. It traces the policies having led to these changes and discusses related policy transfer. The contribution is divided into five parts. It begins by sketching recent changes in doctoral education in the framework of the…

This study investigates the impact of development in the higher education sector, on the Income Inequality in Pakistan, by using the annual time series data from 1973 to 2012. The autoregressive distributed lag bound testing co-integration approach confirms the existence of long-run relationship between higher education and income inequality.…

Since the late nineteenth century, China, as a latecomer to modernization, has prioritized Western learning. The first modern university was created in China in 1895 to serve such a purpose with little linkage to China's rich indigenous cultural traditions. Modelled on European and North American experiences and operating in a Confucian…

Universitas 21 Ranking of National Higher Education Systems (U21 Ranking) is one of the three new ranking systems appearing in 2012. In contrast with the other systems, U21 Ranking uses countries as the unit of analysis. It has several features which lend it with greater trustworthiness, but it also shared some methodological issues with the other…

In 2002 a high-level economic review committee recommended that Singapore position itself as a "global schoolhouse". An ambitious target was set to attract 150,000 international students to Singapore by 2015 and to lift the education sector's contribution to GDP from 1.9% to 5% in the same timeframe. The global schoolhouse was viewed as…

Transformation in higher education in South Africa over the last 20 years has been strongly shaped by post-apartheid pressures. Recent research shows that South Africa's current higher education system can be described as medium knowledge-producing and differentiated, with low participation and high attrition. In the decade following 1994, both…

Higher education has been continuously growing, changing and developing since the Third Plenary Session of the 11th Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party in China. With development of more than 30 years, Chinese higher education has achieved many breakthroughs. Meanwhile, it has been facing some new situations--demographic changes,…

This article focuses on higher education research and policies in small and/or peripheral countries that usually occupy a marginal position in contemporary international debates. The region discussed here is South-eastern Europe and especially the Western Balkans. First, an outline of emerging research centres and the developments in higher…