Women have been underrepresented, and even excluded from academic life throughout history. As countries look to address ongoing inequality in academia, state-mandated gender quotas for academic boards and committees have emerged as a recommended practice in Europe. Although an increasing number of countries have adopted this policy model, little…

The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted academic labour, with women being disproportionately negatively affected. This scoping review provides an exploratory snapshot into the corpus of literature investigating the impact of the pandemic on academic labour. We used a set of criteria to first identify the 86 titles from which we selected 45 as the data…

Science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education and research are globally recognised as engines of growth and development and indicators of citizens' well-being. Studies have continuously highlighted the unequal access and participation in STEM higher education based on class, caste, gender, disability and other markers of…

Entrepreneurship promotion in higher education is a highly controversial issue. Yet entrepreneurship education is nowadays part of the education system all over Europe. In order to be legitimate, entrepreneurship education implemented in higher education institutions is expected to serve multiple stakeholders, among them society, students and…

The adoption of a system based on cycles has been one of the core action lines in the Bologna Process. It represents the base for promoting student mobility, employability, and international competitiveness. The implementation of the degree-cycle system -- conditioned by the achievement of other policy objectives (i.e. ECTS) -- started hot debates…

We look into the question whether heterogeneity stemming from research orientation, gender, or disciplinary and cultural differences with their PhD supervisors helps or hampers academics' careers. Based on a sample of 248 academics at two leading European universities of technology, we combine multinomial logit models and sequential logit models…

In 2006, the European Parliament and the Council adopted the Recommendations on Key Competences for Lifelong Learning. The framework sets out eight competences, which citizens need for 'personal fulfilment and development, active citizenship, social inclusion and employment'. Language competences play a prominent role in the framework, with two…

Internationalisation have recently featured in discussions and initiatives related to various fields of higher education. Educational leaders, institutions and national policy-makers, but also international actors, such as the European Union and UNESCO, have promoted the internationalisation of higher education. Increasing emphasis on…

The primary changes in the teaching profession occurred in the mid-1970s as a result of pressures for student participation in decision making and closer government supervision of procedure and expenditure. Included were changes in the conditions of service and in the relationships between teaching and research and between faculty and…