Introduction and background

Abstract

All across the contemporary world we are witnessing a widespread belief in higher education (“educationism” in Dale and Robertson 2009) as a key to transforming the future. Higher education is associated with traditional values, such as empowerment and personal development, but also with such societal values as paying service to the economy and the local community while also fostering a regional and/or national identity. Increasingly, higher education and knowledge-sharing across national borders is understood as an important step in the cultivation of regional identities during a perceived time of global challenges related to the economy, the environment and society, in general (Gürüz 2011). The cultivation of regional identities, and the mobilization for the future through processes of higher education and cultural exchange, forms new educational landscapes (eduscapes in Forstorp and Mellström 2013) and sustains the hope that the advantages of the region will be identified and explored.