Evidence from Sweden's creation of Norrland University, which uses higher education for regional development, shows that allocation of higher education resources can be used to alter traditional patterns of centralization and that the activities of the outlying institution play as crucial a role as centrally formed policy. (Author/MSE)

Finnish higher education policy in the last two decades is compared with that of other Western European countries. Addressed are (1) quantitative planning and regionalization, (2) social recruitment, (3) governance, and (4) teaching and studies. (Author/MSE)

Institutional responses to the fiscal crisis in American higher education, as well as state and federal initiatives, are pushing universities toward four interrelated structural reforms: institutional differentiation; shift from basic to applied research and development; increased interdisciplinarity; and a shift from department-based research to…