In this paper we attempt to locate collaboration and partnerships between higher education institutions and their stakeholders. These include the state, students, teaching and administrative staff, the community and corporate entities. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the contribution of stakeholders to the developmental trajectory and…

Although global higher education partnerships can promote greater intercultural understanding, establish unique environments for student and faculty development, and generate opportunities for innovative and entrepreneurial ventures, they can be beset with problems that negate their potential effectiveness. This paper proposes that open systems…

Franchised provision of higher education has been under the spotlight in recent times. Without shying away from the challenges faced by those delivering successful franchise arrangements, this paper shows how important franchising can be in extending access to higher education. The authors explain what protections need to be in place to ensure…

There is currently renewed interest in transnational education (TNE) amongst UK universities as a means of taking education to the 98% of tertiary students worldwide who are geographically immobile. In this discourse, the home universities are characterised as the dominant players, seeking strategic opportunities to commercially expand into…

This paper is an attempt to reconcile two different perspectives and come up with a more comprehensive conceptualization of university autonomy by adopting a stakeholder approach in identifying indicators of university autonomy. One perspective views university autonomy as a protection of academic freedom and the other as a performance enhancer.…

This paper discusses Finnish-Russian relations from the perspective of cooperation in higher education, and particularly Finnish-Russian double degree programmes prior to 2022. It asks how internal stakeholders, in double degree programmes perceived the role of their cooperation from the point of view of interstate relations, and how cooperation…

Evidence-based policy has become a norm in the current policy-making rhetoric, affecting also higher education quality assurance. This article agrees with critics that rigorous ex-post impact studies are highly challenging in the field of quality assurance. Nevertheless, there are alternative ways how evidence can effectively guide quality…

Research-intensive universities are operating in an environment of conflicting goals and priorities. Their status in research as well as education is dependent on their performance in various global arenas where performance can be measured with relatively clear indicators. However, success in operations outside the primary tasks of the academic…

The literature on quality management at higher education institutions has for some time been working on the basis of two issues: a) the diversity of ideas as to what "quality" means, which makes it harder to apply the principles of quality management in this context; and b) the idea that this diversity is in some way a response to the…

Issues arising from relationships between academic departments in universities and external stakeholders are numerous and complex. The matter is illustrated in this paper by focusing on a dispute in the theology department at the University of Pretoria, South Africa, which came to a head from 2004 to 2007. The dispute itself is detailed and…

This article studies issues of coloniality in so-called capacity-building projects between universities in Africa and Scandinavia. Even fifty years after independence, the African higher education landscape is a product of the colonial powers and subsequent uneven power relations, as argued by a number of researchers. The uneven geography and…

This article presents an analysis of the mergers in the Danish Higher Education (HE)-sector with a particular emphasis on the 2007 mergers involving universities and Government Research Institutes (GRIs). Furthermore, it follows the post-merger processes up to 2014/2015 at two Danish universities and examines the consequences of the changes seen…

This viewpoint article provides a critical reflection on the gatekeeping and academic language practices of Anglophone universities, evaluating these in light of the promotional claims universities make about internationalization and global reach. I then consider the arguments put forward in each of the main articles in this special issue from…

Purpose: The dominant variance theory approaches to researching business school reputations are based on a positivistic hypothetico-deductive research methodology and do not adequately take into account either the different levels and types of contexts in which business schools operate or the diversity of stakeholder interests. The aim of this…

Debates about the role of the university in society have been going on for many decades. There have been several calls for a more "engaged" form of scholarship which applies itself consciously to the pursuit of applied knowledge which can contribute towards solving some of the most pressing societal challenges. Closer collaboration…