The recent decade brought about new ways of thinking about universities. European-level educational policies became increasingly influential as the agenda of university reforms was viewed as part of greater Lisbon strategy reforms. National governments adopted the economic concept of the university consistently developed in subsequent official documents of the European Commission. The EU member states currently need to balance their educational policies between the requirements of policies promoted by the EU and the requirements of their national systems. Additionally, the national educational policies are under high pressure due to globalisation. European universities and European academics operate in the midst of these large-scale changes. Their interpretations of and their responses to what is termed "the modernisation agenda of European universities" are at the core of this volume. Contents include: (1) Preface (Barbara Kudrycka); (2) Foreword and Message (Jan Truszczynski); (3) Academic Responses to the Modernisation Agenda of European Universities (Andrzej Kurkiewicz and Marek Kwiek); (4) The Growing Complexity of the Academic Enterprise in Europe: A Panoramic View (Marek Kwiek); (5) People and Their Ideas: The Foundation for Inclusive European Growth (Maria Helena Nazare); (6) System Diversity in European Higher Education (Peter Maassen); (7) External and Internal Sources of financing for Universities. The Practice of Good Governance (Maria Hulicka); (8) Europe 2050. New Europeans and Higher Education (Dominik Antonowicz); (9) Higher Education Funding Reforms in Europe and the 2006. Modernisation Agenda (Ben Jongbloed and Harry de Boer); (10) Ensuring the Quality of Teaching and Learning in the Higher Education Modernisation Agenda (Andrzej Krasniewski); (11) The Social Dimensions of Modernizing Higher Education. A Czech-Dutch Comparative Study on Student Finance and Equity (Petr Mateju, Simona Weidnerova, Hans Vossensteyn, and Tomas Konecny); (12) Effective Universities: Some Considerations of Funding, Governance and Management (Paul Temple); (13) The "Global Strategy" 2007-2011: The External Attractiveness of the EHEA and Its Internal Uneasiness (Pavel Zgaga); (14) The European Debate on the Modernisation Agenda for Universities. What has Happened Since 2000? (Georg Winckler); and (15) Concluding Remarks: European Strategies and Higher Education (Marek Kwiek).