Frans A. van Vught (Ed.)

Mapping the Higher Education Landscape: Towards a European Classification of Higher Education

An important contribution to the international discussion on higher education globalization and worldwide rankings of higher education institutions, this volume criticizes the existing onedimensional and aggregated international ranking models and suggests an interesting and exciting
new approach of multi-dimensional mapping of higher education institutions.

The text gives readers a window on the unique process of developing a new approach to creating effective transparency in the diversity of higher education systems. It describes the conceptual, practical and methodological frameworks relevant to this new approach, whose development was based on theoretical and empirical literature on diversity in higher education. The authors report on the design methodology and research that were applied to develop the new instrument and also place it in the context of current supranational and national higher education policies. The new system emerged from a top-level EU project to design the first European classification of higher education institutions as a tool for mapping the diversity of the higher education landscape.

The editor and chapter authors are all international leaders in the field who took part in the multiyear project. They also explore the potential application of the classification in the contexts of the Bologna Process and the European Higher Education and Research Areas (EHEA and ERA). The book analyzes, too, how the system can be used at the level of individual higher education institutions, where the classification is shown to be a useful instrument for strategic institutional profiling.

Contents:

1. Diversity and Differentiation in Higher Education
   Frans van Vught
2. Diversity in European Higher Education: Historical Trends and Current Policies
   Jeroen Huisman and Frans van Vught
3. The Search for Transparency: Convergence and Diversity in the Bologna Process
   Dirk Van Damme
4. The European Higher Education Classification: Objectives and Concepts
   Jeroen Bartelse and Frans van Vught
5. Rankings and Classifications: The Need for a Multidimensional Approach
   Marijk van der Wende and Don Westerheijden
6. The European Higher Education Classification: The Design Process
   Frans Kaiser and Frans van Vught
7. Using the Classification in the European Higher Education Area
   Sybille Reichert
8. Using the Classification in the European Research Area
   Christiane Gaehtgens and Rolf Peter
9. Using the Classification for Institutional Profiling: The Norwegian University of Science and Technology
   Astrid Lægreid and Julie Feilberg
10. Using the Classification for Institutional Profiling: The University of Strathclyde
    Peter West and Saskia Hansen

2009. XIV, 170 p. Hardcover
Higher Education Dynamics, Volume 28

► € 99.95 | £ 89.99 |
ISBN: 978-90-481-2248-6