The COVID-19 global pandemic has created an unprecedented experience for many. The private higher education was not spared and currently faces numerous challenges. This paper aims to provide a brief background on the higher education landscape in Malaysia and the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the private higher education sector. Inevitably,…

Research and Development (R&D) project managers in Higher Education must deal with uncertainty, ambiguity, competition, accountability and different objectives for professors, scientists, firms, users and other stakeholders. Formal project management frameworks are commonly adapted to support this. However, the wide range of challenges related…

This paper discusses some research which was undertaken to explore perceptions around quality assurance within collaborative partnership (CP) working, from a range of internal and external stakeholders. The responses we received are being used to enhance policy and processes and inform the development of guidance materials to support all…

Transnational education (TNE) is a fast moving area. The growth of TNE provision across the higher education (HE) sector has meant professional staff have developed considerable experience and knowledge in this field. However, the development of online and distance learning provision combined with the changing TNE landscape has given rise to new…

This article outlines some of the policy issues currently faced by research-based universities in the Netherlands. The focus is on four leading universities (University of Amsterdam: UvA; Free University of Amsterdam: VU; Leiden University; and Delft University of Technology: TUD). The author visited these institutions as part of a Study Tour…

All the papers included in this volume implicitly adopt an ethical stance towards the aspect of internationalisation that they investigate or discuss, but necessarily these stances only occasionally become explicit. In this paper, therefore, I look at the impact of internationalisation on universities and at their impact in turn on the…

China aims to become an innovation-led nation by 2020, but its leadership is generally sceptical--and oftentimes hostile--to the market forces, open exchange of ideas, and creative destruction that have unlocked innovation in other countries. Instead, Beijing hopes to promote innovation in China through a massive expansion in higher education,…

Institutional Research (IR), as a concept, has been gaining traction in the UK and across the world, as evidenced by the growing number of European, African, Australasian and North American associations, communities, conferences and publications. This paper stresses the need for high-quality (Institutional) research behaviours, aligned with and…

This paper assesses the growing UK private sector in education and questions whether it is, as its supporters suggest, a valuable addition to an already diverse national system. An earlier "Perspectives" paper (Woodfield et al 2011) explored the emerging partnerships between public and private sectors. This follow-up explores the roles…

This paper argues that universities do have responsibilities to their wider communities, and that those responsibilities--or that "engagement"--should be managed in a way that is not solely dictated by the university. The paper, which focuses on UK universities, first explains why the contemporary context makes it important to consider…

Higher education systems worldwide are currently facing a trio of competing challenges: increasing access and absorbing demand; promoting and safeguarding quality; and reducing and minimising costs to students, taxpayers and other investors. The growth of private (profit and not-for-profit) educational provision worldwide, in addition to other…

This is Part 2 of Professor Eastwood's paper given as the AUA Annual Guest Lecture on 24 October 2007. In Part 1 he summarised the historical development of British higher education and reflected on five topics which appear to be settled in the HE debate: desirability of mass HE; desirability of sector diversity; a mixed economy for funding;…

As part of the movement to greater social inclusion, a number of initiatives have been created to build bridges between the school and further education sectors and universities. In England, this kind of activity comes under the Partners 4 Progression (P4P) initiative. In Scotland, such initiatives are more regionally based: the thrust of widening…

One of the themes running through a number of recent papers in perspectives has been a questioning of the current state of perceived boundaries within post-compulsory education in the UK. Temple (2001: 81), for instance, questioned the appropriateness of continuing with the historic conceptual difference between the "knowing what" of higher…