International degree programmes (IDPs) act as focal instruments for the internationalization of higher education in many non-English--speaking countries serving a variety of national objectives, with the commercial objective becoming increasingly common. This study analyses how IDPs have developed in one Nordic country, Finland, from a marginal…

Interest in higher education institutions (HEIs) as instruments for development has increased in recent years. The main objective of this paper is to address the contribution of HEIs to development through their missions, models, and challenges. With this purpose, we perform a historical analysis and characterise higher-education systems through…

The vast majority of studies concerning the implementation of quality assurance in higher education institutions have been conducted from a national perspective, with few cross-national studies. This study aimed to explore the implementation of quality assurance standards in Europe from a comparative perspective. A questionnaire based on…

EU-Russia higher education cooperation has continued despite global tensions including Crimea incorporation. One example of this cooperation is the development of Finnish-Russian double degree programmes. This paper focuses on institutional environments where double degrees develop and asks how and why they produce uncertainty from inside Finnish…

This paper examines the main rationales for and possible implications of the policy of increasing international student numbers in higher education (HE). Drawing on critical discourse analysis, we map key themes emerging from two sets of data--university strategy documents and interviews with staff--collected at eight universities in four national…

This report aims to provide insight into the realities faced by higher education academic staff at a time of fast-moving change and increasing societal demand. Fluctuating student numbers, new funding and steering mechanisms are among the features of today's European higher education landscape, but not enough is known about how academic staff are…

The paper presents a new approach for a bachelor-level curriculum structure in engineering. The approach is called DAS formalism according to its three phases: description, analysis and synthesis. Although developed specifically for process and environmental engineering, DAS formalism has a generic nature and it could also be used in other…

This article describes the results of a workshop that was held in Valencia during the annual conference of SEFI in 2004. The authors give remarks on the results supported by relevant and recent research. In the workshop, where about 35 participants were present, the following questions were discussed and answered: Which factors indicate that an…

A collection of papers discusses preservice teacher education in Belgium, Germany, Spain, the United Kingdom, Greece, Italy, Ireland, Netherlands, Finland, and the United States, focusing on teacher professionalization and noting the politics of education in each country. (SM)

Finding employment as an academic is becoming increasingly challenging for several reasons, including the tightening employment market and increases in the qualifications demanded of jobseekers and the pool of academically trained job seekers. A two-round Delphi study was therefore conducted to identify recruitment channels in the hidden labor…