European Integration and the Europeanisation of Higher Education

Abstract

European higher education is going through an important transformation. While during the first decades after the Second World War the sector experienced a period of relative stability in its basic national and institutional organisation and governance structures, more recently it has undergone far-reaching changes. Overall, the recent change dynamics represent a shift from internal to external control, consisting, amongst other things, of the introduction of externally initiated evaluation mechanisms, the professionalisation of institutional management functions and the growing pressure to be accountable to society. In addition, a change from central governmental planning and regulation of higher education to a growing reliance on a market-like competition in the steering of individual higher education institutions can be observed.