The study combines a bibliometric approach with a content analysis of abstracts of articles to explore the patterns of international comparative higher education research in leading international journals. The overall data set covers 4,095 publications from the Web of Science for the period 1992-2012 and the amount of international comparative…

Research into the relationship between research and teaching in higher education has flourished over several decades, and the most recent research phase has focused particularly on how the research-teaching nexus can enhance the quality and outcomes of the learning experience for both students and academics. On the basis of bibliographic review,…

This paper uses Tight ("High Educ Res Dev" 23(4):395-411, 2004; "High Educ Res Dev" 31(5):723-740, 2012; "High Educ Res Dev" 32(1):136-151, 2013)'s journal analysis and review framework to review a sample of 497 journal articles on researches concerning international students over the past 30 years. It was found…

University expansion in higher education has been hierarchically differentiated. There is some concentration of certain social profiles in some degrees of study, so social composition between degrees can vary considerably. This article describes in terms of social composition 10 degrees of four public universities in the metropolitan area of…

European higher education is awash with educational reform initiatives that purport to transform universities into better-managed higher quality organizations that more directly contribute to national development. This exploratory study examines patterns of research discourse in higher education in Europe. We argue that these patterns are changing…

Since the mid 1970s, a series of international declarations that recognize the critical link between environmental sustainability and higher education have been endorsed and signed by universities around the world. While academic initiatives in sustainability are blossoming, higher education lacks a comprehensive evaluation framework that is…

Higher education research is a growing, inter-disciplinary and increasingly international field of study. This article examines the citation patterns of articles published in six leading higher education journals--three published in the United States and three published elsewhere in the world--for what they reveal about the development of this…

Hong Kong and Singapore were former British colonies, have a predominant Chinese population and value. They began to develop quickly in the late 1960s, become financial hubs of the world in the 21st century. This paper reviews the tertiary education development of the two cities, particularly on the perspective of university rankings. It first…

This article engages with the question: what does the internationalisation of higher education in times of globalisation sustain and what should it sustain? We first consider, through literature on globalisation and Stier's ("Glob Soc Educ" 2(1):1-28, 2004) work, limitations of currently prevalent perspectives on…

The main aim of this article is to contribute to the understanding of organizational autonomy and control in higher education reform and related expectations as regards the performance of universities. Our analyses draws on principal-agent models as a normative theory of policy reform, and institutionalist approaches in public policy and…

The potential occurrence of variable returns to size in research activity is a factor to be considered in choices about the size of research organizations and also in the planning of national research assessment exercises, so as to avoid favoring those organizations that would benefit from such occurrence. The aim of the current work is to improve…

Doctoral students are highly important in university-firm relationships, since they are significant producers of knowledge in collaborative research projects, they are an important channel for knowledge transfer between universities and firms, and are vital in network configurations between firms and universities. An increasing number of doctoral…

This paper reviews some of the literature on the use of groupwork as a form of assessment in tertiary institutions. It outlines the considerable advantages of groupwork but also its systemic associated problems. In discussing the problems, the paper considers issues such as "free riding" and the "sucker effect", issues associated with ethnic mix…

Rankings and league tables, or Report Cards (RCs), of Higher Education Institutions have become a global phenomenon. Their purpose, it is claimed, is to help "student-consumers" make informed decisions. Yet the degree to which RCs succeed in helping students in their college choice is disputed. Even though RCs are intended for all, which…

This article depicts how faculty members at Mexican higher education institutions have been prepared in order to assume their professional responsibilities. It relies on three elements: First, a secondary analysis of a national faculty survey composed of 3,861 faculty members from 65 institutions; second, 34 interviews conducted in eight higher…