The last decade has marked the European higher education with a particular dynamics. Today, after a decade of a «concerted» policy, national systems look much more convergent but new questions and dilemmas are emerging: about its nature and quality, about real impact of recent reforms in different countries as well as about its future. The book examines the impact of Europe-wide and global developments on national higher education systems. The authors try in particular to upfront issues of convergence and diversity, of equity and of the relationship of centres and peripheries in higher education. The book is an outcome of research collaboration between six institutes which developed a EuroHESC research proposal on the consequences of expanded and differentiated higher education systems. The following chapters are included: (1) Challenges for European Higher Education: "Global" and "National", "Europe" and "sub-Europes" (Pavel Zgaga, Ulrich Teichler, and John Brennan); (2) Imagining Higher Education in the European Knowledge Economy: Discourse and Ideas in Communications of the EU (Janja Komljenovic and Klemen Miklavic); (3) The Event of International Mobility in the Course of Study--The European Policy Objective (Ulrich Teichler); (4) The Impact of University Rankings on Higher Education Policy in Europe: A Challenge to Perceived Wisdom and a Stimulus for Change (Ellen Hazelkorn and Martin Ryan); (5) Diversification in Austrian Higher Education: A Result of European or National Policies? (Elsa Hackl); (6) The Effects of Europeanisation on Institutional Diversification in the Western Balkans (Manja Klemencic); (7) The Monolithic Un-intentionality of Higher Education Policies: On the Continuing Importance of Karl Marx, Joseph Stalin and the Minor Classics Less Known (Voldemar Tomusk); (8) "Hullabaloo in the Groves of Academe": The Politics of "Instituting" a Market in English Higher Education (Susan L. Robertson); (9) Higher Education Differentiation and the Myth of Meritocracy: The Case of the UK (John Brennan); (10) The Recognition of Prior Learning and Dutch Higher Education--At Cross-Purposes? (Leon Cremonini); (11) From System Expansion to System Contraction. Access to Higher Education in Poland (Marek Kwiek); (12) Higher Education Policy Dynamics in a Multi-level Governance Context: A Comparative Study of Four Post-Communist Countries (Martina Vukasovic and Mari Elken); (13) What Kind of University for What Kind of Society? Nation-States, Post-National Constellations, and Higher Education in the Post-Yugoslav Space (Jana Bacevic); (14) The Bosnian Puzzle of Higher Education in the Perspective of the Bologna Process (Tatjana Sekulic); (15) Reclaiming the Role of Higher Education in Croatia: Dominant and Oppositional Framings (Danijela Dolenec and Karin Doolan); and (16) Reconsidering Higher Education Reforms in the Western Balkans: "Policy Colonies" or "Policy Autarchies"? (Pavel Zgaga).