Purpose: Sustainability is understood as a complex and integrating area, involving the most diverse areas and fields of knowledge. Because of the innumerable socio-environmental challenges in the current scenario, a sustainable development that finds the necessary changes and advances for communities, industry and the various stakeholders involved…

This paper is based on findings of a study that examined challenges to innovation and the greening of economies identified by businesses, TVET institutions, and other organisations with the "aim to formulate options for strategic actions to increase 'sustainable competitiveness' of Hong Kong SAR, China" as measured by "The Global…

Purpose: This paper aims to contribute to discussion around the need for improved models for change in a rapidly changing world. It also aims to provide insights for further discussion around how a Nordic management approach can relate to the need for new change ideas. Since Lewin proposed that change requires unfreezing, moving and refreezing,…

The country case studies are part of the empirical data collected for the "Promoting the Relevance of Higher Education" project. Before presenting the case studies, this introductory chapter describes how the 8 case studies were selected, the case study methodology, and provides an overview of the interviewed organisations and experts.…

The Bologna Process was an attempt to build and coordinate OECD countries' higher education systems through, "inter alia," strategic public investment. The Lisbon Strategy 2000-2010 was a continuation of the Bologna process that also highlighted the coordination of education and research based on market-based funding models. Similarly,…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore the expectations of and possible tensions in school leadership regarding the implementation of the 2014 Danish school reform and, by extension, to address emerging perspectives linking school leadership, learning and well-being. Design/methodology/approach: An analysis of central policy documents in…

Centers for Teaching and Learning (CTLs) are at the forefront of many quality enhancement activities aimed at teaching and learning at universities and do not solely focus on supporting individual teacher in conducting quality teaching but are also playing a strategic role in the university. CTLs provide in other words holistic academic…

Despite the emerging discussions about the growing role of engineers in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), there is a lack of agreement on which competences should be prioritised to prepare engineering students to resolve future sustainability challenges. This study examined and compared the views of key stakeholders of…

The article deals with the validation of the internationalization imperative in higher education institutions (HEIs) of the Nordic countries. I focus on both the goals and motives behind activities supporting internationalization, but also on the manner of their habitualization and institutionalization in the practice of academic administration…

Internationalisation is now a key strategic priority for many universities. As part of this process, universities are increasingly looking to build a number of key strategic partnerships with a small number of like-minded institutions. This paper, based on a detailed study of three such partnerships, seeks to understand and theorise the process by…

Strategic management and leadership has been a vital catchphrase in most European higher education reforms over the past decade, and has in many countries resulted in a strengthening of the top level management tiers. Rectors and Deans are increasingly tasked with the responsibility of turning HEIs into more active, entrepreneurial actors in…

Strategic government interventions in public education have shifted and blurred the boundaries between state, market and civil society modes of governance. Within this matrix of interdependent relations, schools operate under increasingly hybrid accountability arrangements in which public accountability can both complement and compete with market…

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…

This chapter summarises the rationales and impacts of the national reforms of the six countries selected (Austria, Denmark, Finland, France, the Netherlands and Portugal) and complements it with a literature review on reforms in these and other EU countries. The reforms emerge as having been inspired by endogenous processes -- with or without a…

Global university rankings currently attract considerable attention, and it is often assumed that such rankings may cause universities to prioritize activities and outcomes that will have a positive effect in their ranking position. A possible consequence of this could be the spread of a particular model of an "ideal" university. This…