European Universities and the Challenge of the Market

Book excerpt: This book offers an analysis of the increasing influence of external demands on the dynamics of European higher education systems and institutions. It focuses on the growing openness of higher education to its external environment and suggests that a market logic has emerged in higher education institutions. In addition, the book addresses a number of crucial drivers of change , like the massification of higher education, the emergence of the knowledge economy and the Bologna Process. And it studies the roles and interests of various stakeholders. This book should be of interest to all those who are involved in higher education, whether as internal actors in institutions of higher education, or as its external clients and policy makers. It provides a relevant perspective on the current developments in European higher education and at the same time offers the conceptual tools to critically analyze these developments. Frans van Vught, President of the European Center for Strategic Management of Universities (Esmu) and former president of the University of Twente, the Netherlands The book presents exciting comparative perspectives: how Italian scholars perceive and assess links between higher education and the economy. In-depth information is provided on issues not well documented in the past, e.g. the involvement of external actors in curriculum design, career services for students and links between governance and funding. The Milano-based team of scholars convincingly interpret the opportunities and problems of higher education reforms aiming to position higher education in the knowledge society. Ulrich Teichler, University of Kassel, Germany European Universities and the Challenge of the Market by Marino Regini offers a timely, refreshing and well-researched account of one of the most important changes in European (and other) higher education the rise of competition and the market as key policy drivers. This is a global template whose diffusion and domestications are hugely important for higher education policy research and Regini s book begins lucidly and insightfully to fill in longstanding gaps for us. Just as crucially the book provides valuable material on both the convergences and divergences we find increasingly between globally-situated higher education states. Roger King, Open University and London School of Economics, UK UK academics are frequently exhorted to integrate a European (and global) perspective into their syllabuses, especially where their students are drawn from a wide variety of national backgrounds. But this is difficult when there is a dearth of detailed, accessible contemporary accounts of national practices elsewhere. This edited book goes a very long way to help them. It offers detailed, rigorously researched descriptions of the nature and effects on higher education of its marketisation descriptions rooted in robust theoretical and conceptual frameworks which help the reader situate the descriptions in their own context. Paul Trowler, Lancaster University, UK