The European Union (EU) has repeatedly underlined the importance of higher education, research and innovation as drivers in the further development of Europe--economically, socially and culturally. One of the latest policy initiatives by the European Commission (EC) intended to promote this agenda is the European Universities Initiative (EUI)…

Several university alliances have been established in Europe in an attempt to influence the development of policies in research and education. As such, these alliances can be seen as being new players in the increasingly complex multi-actor, multi-level governance in this policy domain. The paper compares two key university alliances in Europe; in…

This article addresses how European policy initiatives in higher education, research and innovation are diffused in the European higher education research and education area. Based on an instrumental and an institutional perspective, specific expectations are developed as to how policy diffusion might unfold, and, through an in-depth analysis of…

While external quality assurance in higher education was originally developed to cater for various domestic needs, recent decades have seen various attempts in the use of quality assurance also as a mechanism for creating more trust in cross-national higher education activities. In this article, a conceptual framework for analysing available…

The study provides an insight into student perspectives on quality in higher education, using Harvey and Green conceptualizations as the point of departure, and exploring the linkages between the views on quality, the developments of the Bologna Process and related national reforms, as well as students' motivation for and expectations from higher…