Books/Book chapters

How Rankings are Reshaping Higher Education

Ellen Hazelkorn — Mon, 11 Mar 2013 03:22:20 PDT

The Impact of University Rankings on Higher Education Policy in Europe: a Challenge to Perceived Wisdom and a Stimulus for Change

Ellen Hazelkorn et al. — Mon, 25 Feb 2013 12:05:26 PST

The arrival of global rankings in 2003 was a clarion call for urgent reform of European higher education. The results of the Shanghai Academic Ranking of World Universities and the Times Higher Education QS World University Ranking, first published in 2003 and 2004 respectively, challenged the perceived wisdom about the reputation and excellence of European universities. Since then, the EU and its Member States have sought to reshape and modernise higher education in Europe. This paper argues that the emergence of global rankings was not only a challenge to perceived wisdom, but also a stimulus for change in European higher education policy. While it is too soon to evaluate whether new policies have made a direct impact on the performance of European countries in global rankings, it is now time for debate on the apparent influence of global rankings on higher education policy in Europe.

Striving for World Class Excellence: Rankings and Emerging Societies

Ellen Hazelkorn — Mon, 25 Feb 2013 12:05:25 PST

World-Class Universities or World Class Systems?: Rankings and Higher Education Policy Choices

Ellen Hazelkorn — Mon, 25 Feb 2013 12:05:23 PST

Policy Implications and Rrecommendations: Now What?

Brian O'Neill et al. — Mon, 02 Jul 2012 02:43:02 PDT

The EU Kids Online survey represents the most substantial knowledge base to date about young people’s online experiences in Europe. Chapters in this volume highlight findings that provide new kinds of evidence of significant interest for policy makers. They address questions which range from how to respond to the fact that the internet is now firmly in children’s lives; how to develop appropriate strategies for internet safety while responding to shifting patterns of access and use; how to manage those enduring risks to children’s welfare that appear to be amplified in the online world, and deal with risks that are genuinely new; how to best mobilise mediation that can be effective; and how, in the context of wide diversity across Europe, to promote equality and inclusiveness?

In this chapter, we discuss the principal contours of the policy response to these questions thus far, asking whether current policy is working and what, if any, are the gaps in policy formulations on internet safety? Online safety has been debated in policy circles ever since the World Wide Web was opened for commercial and public participation, often without reliable research on its appropriateness or effectiveness. Responding to demands for greater regulation and control, policy makers have since the mid 1990s sought to support the opportunities of the Information Society, whilst minimizing its apparent downsides and increased risks for children and families brought about by a largely unregulated internet. Responses have included legislative, regulatory, law enforcement, awareness and educational measures involving a diverse number of stakeholders. The European Union has been to the fore in this regard, but so also has the Council of Europe, the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), UNICEF, UNESCO, and the Internet Governance Forum, to name but a few of the international actors within the increasingly busy space for policy debate on internet safety.

Understanding Rankings and the Alternatives: Implications for Higher Education

Ellen Hazelkorn — Wed, 13 Jun 2012 08:52:55 PDT

Higher education rankings have become an international phenomenon. In today’s world, the talent-catching and knowledge-producing capacity of higher education has become a vital sign of a coun-try’s capacity to participate in world science and the global economy. In the process, rankings are transforming universities and reshaping higher education. Despite the fact that there are over 16,000 higher education institutions (HEIs) worldwide, there is a continuing fascination with the standing and trajectory of the top 100, less than 1 % of the world’s institutions. These develop-ments have affected the decisions and opinions of students and their parents, higher education and governments, stakeholders and civil, the media and public opinion – in both positive and perverse ways. This chapter is divided into five sections: i) provides an understanding of what rankings measure, ii) assesses their shortcomings, iii) discusses the way rankings are influencing higher education decision-making and national policy-making, iv) looks at some alternative methods for measuring and comparing higher education performance, and v) concludes with some recommen-dations for using rankings cautiously and strategically.

Engaging With the Community

Ellen Hazelkorn et al. — Fri, 18 May 2012 06:40:26 PDT

This article focuses on how higher education institutions (HEIs) engage with their external community, contribute to social and economic development, and underpin civil society and democracy. The external community consists of a wide-range of stakeholders from business and industry, the public, private and non-governmental sector, and civil society. While many HEIs have historically had a strong association to their city or nation, today the health of society and the economy is inextricably tied to greater collaboration between “town” and “gown”. The article has five main sections: i) Introduces the social and public responsibility of higher education, ii) Describes the policy context, iii) Defines “engagement”, iv) Offers some indicators to assess and measure engagement and v) Summarizes and makes some recommendations to help institutional leaders ensure engagement is successful and sustained.

Everyone Wants to be Like Harvard – Or Do They? Cherishing All Missions Equally

Ellen Hazelkorn — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 02:31:19 PST

European "Transparency Instruments": Driving the Modernisation of European Higher Education

Ellen Hazelkorn — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 02:25:51 PST

This paper reviews the background to and assesses the usefulness of the various transparency instruments (e.g. college guides, accreditation, classification systems, benchmarking models, global rankings). While there are differences between these various “instruments”, they can all be considered as part of the growing trend for greater transparency, accountability and comparability which began with college guides or handbooks around 1970. It will then place the most recent European developments (e.g. U-Map and U-Multirank) and other EU-funded initiatives (Expert Group on the Assessment of University-based Research and the 3-M Project on Third Mission) within this context. In doing so, the paper will discuss the extent to which these initiatives provide greater transparency and information for stakeholders, and the impact that such initiatives are having on higher education. The paper asks to what extent these initiatives support broad higher education policy objectives, e.g. the modernisation agenda of higher education institutions, their strategic orientations and the requirements of knowledge-driven societies.

The Effects of Rankings on Student Choices and Institutional Selection

Ellen Hazelkorn — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 02:25:50 PST

Rankings and the Global “Battle for Talent"

Ellen Hazelkorn — Thu, 15 Sep 2011 06:33:20 PDT

This chapter will look at the impact that rankings are having on student choice and mobility, and the way in which both higher education institutions (HEIs) and government are responding to global competition for talent. It draws on the results of an international survey of HE leaders in 2006 and interviews with HEIs in Australia, Japan and Germany during 2008. The research was conducted under the auspices of the OECD Programme for Institutional Management of Higher Education, the International Association of Universities, and the Institute of Higher Education Policy—the latter with funding from the Lumina Foundation. There are three main sections: part 1 describes the growing importance that rankings are having on student mobility and student choice; part 2 provides an overview of the recruitment and other initiatives HEIs are adopting; and part 3 looks at policy reaction. The final section offers some concluding observations on the way in which rankings are accelerating competition for the lucrative international student market.

Transforming Academic Practice: Human Resources Challenges

Ellen Hazelkorn et al. — Thu, 15 Sep 2011 06:33:19 PDT

Community Engagement as Social Innovation

Ellen Hazelkorn — Thu, 15 Sep 2011 06:33:17 PDT

Rankings and the Reshaping of Higher Education:the Battle for World Wide Excellence

Ellen Hazelkorn — Thu, 12 May 2011 01:48:53 PDT

Facing Challenges: Irish Public Television in the Digital Age

Ellen Hazelkorn — Wed, 26 Jan 2011 13:18:30 PST

This paper traces some of the main challenges facing public television in Ireland.

New Technologies and Changing Work Practices in Irish Broadcasting Revisited

Ellen Hazelkorn — Tue, 18 Jan 2011 03:29:42 PST

At the end of the century, the challenges posed by ‘the pace of change affecting both the technology and the public policy of broadcasting’ required that RTE , the Irish broadcasting company, embraced a strategy of continuous change. To meet these challenges, the Executive Board instigated a ‘thorough review of the organisation…not merely anticipating the imminent arrival of keener domestic and international competition…[but] to project itself into the future’. Following an intensive six-month review, the RTE Authority and senior management issued a blueprint for the future, Review of Structures and Operations; at the same time, the trade union group within RTE, with management support, published their own review, Towards a Shared Vision. The Review identified ‘modern technologies, structures and accompanying work practices…[and operating] in a commercially enterprising manner in order to maximise its revenue’ as fundamental to any strategy for survival. In so doing, the report acknowledged significant changes in work practices that have already occurred and anticipated further changes to ensure that RTE’s ‘methods of operation…conform to best practice’. This paper charts these developments and their impact.

The Dynamics of Cultural Production in Ireland: Economic Strategy, Digital Technology and Public Policy Making

Ellen Hazelkorn — Tue, 18 Jan 2011 03:29:41 PST

The last ten years has seen Ireland, now dubbed the ‘Celtic tiger’ of Europe, achieve an economic about-turn. A key element of this growth has been new technology. Irish policy makers have focused increasingly on a growth strategy led by the information and communications technologies (ICTs) as a means to leapfrog historic and geographic limitations of the earlier industrial revolution and ‘jump-start’ Irish economic growth. Taking advantage of rapid social structural changes, relatively high public investment/endorsement of education and advanced skills, and a ‘natural’ reservoir of creativity, that strategy has sought to market Ireland as an ‘information gateway’, an English-speaking beachhead between the USA and Europe, with an emphasis on information distribution and cultural content products. This paper outlines policy-making focused on the role of cultural production/industries as an ‘integral component of the increasingly global network of inter-connected leisure and entertainment industries’ in the capital (re)generation of Ireland. Part i looks at the various steps taken by policy-makers to both recognise and then target and develop arts and cultural activity as an economic sector. Part ii goes behind the hyperbole asks two questions: do the cultural industries exist as an identifiable cluster, and can national economic/capital (re)generation be built around cultural production?

The Cultural Economy of Dublin

Ellen Hazelkorn et al. — Tue, 18 Jan 2011 03:29:40 PST

This article examines the growth between 1990 to 2000 of the interactive media industry in the Dublin area. In this period it became a world leader in the development of electronic leading companies. The article assesses the role the state played in the development of this cluster.

Challenges of Growing Research at New and Emerging HEIs

Ellen Hazelkorn — Tue, 18 Jan 2011 03:28:28 PST

Newer institutions are accused of adopting the accoutrements of traditional universities, actively copying their research profile and teaching programmes, and engaging in ‘academic’ or ‘mission’ drift. For others, however, these changes are part of the natural or inevitable process of institutional development and historical change, or a further step in the democratisation of the ‘Humboltian ethic’ (Neave, 2000, p265). If massification and expansion in 1960s differentiated the second stage in higher educational development from its elite origins, then the late 1990s marked the beginning of the third stage. By then, it was clear that a broadly educated population could no longer be formed by and within universities alone. In societies where knowledge and knowledge creation are highly privileged and integral to both national and institutional prestige, advanced learning and research capacity are allied and critical. Paradoxically, by seeking to conform to their mission, new and emerging HEIs soon outgrew the straitjacket of their birth. This chapter looks at these tensions and challenges.

Growth Strategies and Intellectual Capital Formation in New and Emerging HEIs

Ellen Hazelkorn — Tue, 18 Jan 2011 03:28:27 PST

Higher educational institutions are being asked to contribute more effectively and efficiently to economic growth, innovation and intellectual capital. As they do so, the academy has also come under pressure. The content of academic work, the role of faculty, and the balance between teaching, research and service, have, arguably, been restructured, reconfigured and redefined. For academics within traditional universities, pressures for accountability and social relevance have challenged what many valued as ‘their autonomy’. But, for staff within new and emerging HEIs, those formed or reconstituted circa. 1970, there have been different pressures. Many were hired originally as teachers and now face increasing pressures to spend more time conducting research. Growing research is not without costs. Based on an international study, this chapter seeks to understand how new HEIs are responding to the challenges and the extent to which human resources issues impact on institutional and research strategy.