Ase Gornitzka – författare

Starting from the now classical book by Ladislav Cerych and Paul Sabatier (1986), the editors present a critical appreciation of that initial work and a review and critical appraisal of current empirical policy research in higher education.

In the second part, a set of chapters analyses the effective and specific complexities of the implementation of higher education policies in several countries, offering a wide variety of situations both in terms of duration of implementation, legal objectives, adequacy of causal theories underlying the reforms, adequacy of financial resources and degree of commitment of the main actors of the process. Some of these chapters use alternative theoretical frameworks developed since the 1986 Cerych and Sabatier theorization to interpret the empirical results, and some national cases do not fall within the scope of Cerych and Sabatier’s analysis. The national case studies are: Australia (2), Austria, Finland, Italy, Mexico, The Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, South Africa, Sweden, the UK and the USA.

Processes of knowledge production and dissemination are increasingly set in an international context. In research and higher education the links between local actors and the international environments are both proliferating and intensifying. Individual level self-organised international collaboration is increasingly supplemented by national and supranational organised activities, and by market oriented activity with a global scope. Starting from these observations, this book analyses patterns of internationalisation comprising the national and supranational level, the level of higher education institutions and private companies, as well as the level of individual researchers and graduates. As a laboratory for studying internationalisation the book uses the case of Norway, a small knowledge system set in an open society, political system and economy. The case offers exceptionally good data on the developments in its research and higher education system that record changes over time and across the different parts and levels of a national knowledge system

This book is the first comparative volume on European research and higher education policies. The chapters cover topics such as the idea of the European Research Area, sustainability of the Bologna Process, institution building for a Europe of Knowledge, domestic impact of EU level initiatives, and the role of the crisis in the European Higher Education Area. It accounts for the creation of key institutions administering EU funding and addresses the core issues of European integration in the knowledge domains.

This thought provoking book will engage academic readers interested in European integration analyzed from general political science, administrative science, organization theory perspectives as well as in higher education and science studies. National policy-makers, European policy-makers and practitioners will also find much policy-relevant content, particularly because the European Research Area is formally scheduled to be completed by 2014.

Contributors include: M.-H. Chou, M. Elken, Å. Gornitzka, H.F. Hansen, C. Hoareau, J. Metz, J. Real-Dato, M. Vukasovic