COMPREHENDING THE INTERNATIONAL INITIATIVES OF UNIVERSITIES: A Taxonomy of Modes of Engagement and Institutional Logics by Richard J. Edelstein and John Aubrey Douglass. CSHE.19.12. Download the PDF document.
Abstract: The paper examines the behavior of universities at the level of the individual institution to create a taxonomy of actions and logics used to initiate international activities, engagements, and academic programs. The taxonomy is organized utilizing the concepts of activity clusters, modes of engagement, and institutional logics. Its purpose is to provide a framework for future research as well as a tool for scholars and practitioners to better analyze and understand what has become a rush by many universities to become more engaged globally. After a brief discussion of the importance of contextual variables such as academic discipline, academic program level, and the prestige hierarchy, the specific characteristics of the university as a social organization are considered. A central assumption is that the most meaningful and successful change in the university occurs when the decentralized nature of the organization and the significant formal and informal authority of faculty and academic staff is recognized and incorporated into decision processes in real and meaningful ways. The taxonomy of actions and logics is conceptualized as a list of modes of engagement that can be organized into seven clusters of activity. Clusters include individual faculty initiatives; the management of institutional demography; mobility initiatives; curricular and pedagogical change; transnational institutional engagements; network building; and campus culture, ethos, and leadership. Nine institutional logics are described and proposed as possible explanatory variables as to how universities interpret their global environment and justify strategies, policies, and actions they undertake. International and global realities have become a central strategic concern for many universities. The framework offered in this article is intended to help support empirical research on strategies, actions and logics at the institutional level and an on-going research project by the authors.

The European Commission is promoting transparency in the international higher education system. After a feasibility study successfully completed in 2011, the Commission is now funding a two-year project to implement U-Multirank, a multi-dimensional and user-driven international ranking of higher education institutions. An international consortium of partners from nine countries will run the project together with international stakeholder organisations. The consortium includes three organizations, members of IREG Observatory: CHE Centre for Higher Education (Germany) the lead of the of the project together with Center for Higher Education Policy Studies (CHEPS), Observatoire des Sciences et des Techniques - OST (France) and Perspektywy Education Foundation (Poland).
The Commissioner for Higher Education and Culture, Androulla Vassiliou, said: U-Multirank "will be useful to each participating higher education institution, as a planning and self-mapping exercise; and more should join as it proves its utility, and to respond to calls from students and others for greater transparency in European higher education. By providing students with clearer information to guide their study choices, this is a fresh tool for more quality, relevance and transparency in European higher education."
The basic characteristics of U-Multirank, which has been developed in close consultation with stakeholders, differ substantially from existing international rankings:
An initial pilot ranking covering at least 500 higher education institutions, both inside and outside Europe, and four fields of study (mechanical and electrical engineering, business – the fields included in the feasibility study – and physics) will be published in early 2014. U-Multirank will then be expanded regularly to include more institutions and fields of study. More information.

The ECA Winter Seminar will take place on 17th January 2013 in The Hague. Recognition and "automatic recognition" are important topics in the Bucharest Communique. ECA has been working on mutual recognition since 2003 and would like to explore the relationship between its work and the statements regarding recognition in the Bucharest Communique. To attend the seminar, please fill in the registration form.
Automatic recognition in the Bucharest Communiqué:
"Fair academic and professional recognition, including recognition of non-formal and informal learning, is at the core of the EHEA. It is a direct benefit for students’ academic mobility, it improves graduates’ chances of professional mobility and it represents an accurate measure of the degree of convergence and trust attained. We are determined to remove outstanding obstacles hindering effective and proper recognition and are willing to work together towards the automatic recognition of comparable academic degrees, building on the tools of the Bologna framework, as a long-term goal of the EHEA. We therefore commit to reviewing our national legislation to comply with the Lisbon Recognition Convention. We welcome the European Area of Recognition (EAR) Manual and recommend its use as a set of guidelines for recognition of foreign qualifications and a compendium of good practices, as well as encourage higher education institutions and quality assurance agencies to assess institutional recognition procedures in internal and external quality assurance."

The European Consortium for Accreditation in higher education (ECA) decided to develop a European certificate for the assessment of internationalisation. The first meeting of the CeQuInt project Steering Group took place in NVAO premises in the Hague on 13 November 2012.
Today internationalisation itself is perceived as an indicator for the quality of higher education, but so far only few European-wide approaches have assessed the quality of internationalisation. The current national accreditation systems do not explicitly include international and intercultural learning outcomes and a commonly agreed assessment methodology is lacking. Therefore, the European Consortium for Accreditation in higher education (ECA) decided to develop a European certificate for the assessment of internationalisation. In October 2012, a consortium of quality assurance agencies from eleven countries, the Academic Cooperation Association (ACA), and the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) started the development of a Certificate for the Quality of Internationalisation (CeQuInt). This ECA project is funded by the EU and coordinated by the Accreditation Organisation of The Netherlands and Flanders (NVAO). The overall aim of the project is to assess, reward and enhance internationalisation.
A positive assessment by an assessment panel will lead to the award by ECA of the Certificate for Quality in Internationalisation. This certificate confirms that a programme or institution has successfully included a significant international and/or intercultural dimension in the purpose, function and delivery of its education. The Certificate for Quality in Internationalisation is intended to lead to a substantial improvement in the transparency and level of internationalisation.
The first meeting of the CeQuInt project Steering Group took place in NVAO premises in the Hague on 13 November 2012. The project partners have given specific attention to the further definition of assessment methodology, the identification of candidates for the pilot procedures, the specific roles and profiles of experts in the assessment panels and the commencement of dissemination activities. The immediate agreed actions include a stronger involvement of experts from the professional field in the assessment panels, the introduction of a core group of experts that will take part in several pilot procedures and the reporting of national and international dissemination activities. The next Steering Group meeting is foreseen to take place in Slovenia in March 2013.
For more information please visit the CeQuInt project website.

EMQA: Erasmus Mundus Quality Assurance for International Higher Education Master and Doctoral programmes
Self assess your performance with Erasmus Mundus masters and doctorates. Look at the EMQA  tool "Erasmus Mundus Quality Assessment" and improve your Excellence.
 EMQA is a participatory approach to quality assurance that has been built since 2008 for the European Commission DG Education and Culture Erasmus Mundus Master and Doctoral Joint Programmes. EMQA is not a standard QA process of judging or ranking courses against a fixed set of ‘standards’. The underlying principle is that international programmes are innovating constantly and that this innovation needs to be communicated directly back to the HE sector. EMQA is a strongly participatory approach to excellence. The resources on this Web site can be used by any international programme – Master, Doctoral, Professional, or Commercial – to help you to review your own quality against a structured set of quality components drawn from Higher Education across the European Union. On this site you can:
1- Understand the 'landscape' of quality challenges that international programmes encounter;
2- Self-assess your own courses or programmes against a series of structured questions;
3- See in detail examples of excellent practice from programmes studied in depth since 2008;
4- Read online, and download, a Handbook of Excellence that guides you through the issues you need to consider when creating Master and Doctoral Programmes;
5- Contribute your own excellent practice and add to the body of evidence that will continue to develop the 'components of excellence'.
Please enter your login details or Register here.
For guidance, please refer to the User Guide which can be downloaded here.

In this post, dr Joanna Williams from University of Kent (UK) argues that there is a complex process by which students adopt a consumer perspective to higher education, and it is not merely tuition fees that contribute to this. The entry draws on her recent book "Consuming Higher Education: Why Learning Can’t Be Bought", London: Bloomsbury.
Recent news reports suggest the true cost of a university education for English students may be close to £100,000. It is perhaps not surprising then that students are increasingly described as ‘consumers’ of higher education (HE) (see Brown: 2011 and Molesworth, Nixon and Scullion: 2011). In Consuming Higher Education: Why Learning Can’t Be Bought I argue that the payment of university tuition fees (currently £9000 each year for English students) is a symptom rather than a cause of students being considered as consumers. Students are constructed as consumers both before entering HE and while at university by a range of government policies and institutional practices, many of which pre-date tuition fees paid by individual students. Indeed, students were first referred to as ‘customers’ of HE in government publicity in 1993, five years before they were required to pay any fees at all (see the Conservative government’s 1993 Charter for Higher Education).
Students are constructed as consumers from the moment they first begin to think about attending university. Government-sponsored websites offering guidance to school children present university as mainly concerned with future employment and material reward: ‘Higher education could boost your career prospects and earning potential … on average, graduates tend to earn substantially more  … Projected over a working lifetime, the difference is something like £100,000’. The government’s perception of the benefit of HE emerges clearly: it is to enable youngsters to get a job and earn money. Education is presented as an essentially private investment from which material rewards can be accrued. The ‘good consumer’ will shop around to choose the university that will most efficiently yield the highest return on their investment. Read more...

The Eurydice network published schematic diagrams on “the structure of the European education systems 2012/13″. They show the structure of mainstream schooling in 39 education systems, from pre-primary level up to tertiary education. All 34 countries of the Eurydice Network are covered by the study. More detailed information also on Eurypedia.

PLOTEUS aims to help students, job seekers, workers, parents, guidance counsellors and teachers to find out information about studying in Europe.
On this portal you will find information on learning opportunities and training possibilities available throughout the European Union. The website contains links to web sites of universities and higher education institutions, databases of schools and vocational training and adult education courses.
To help making informed choices this portal also contains links to websites where you find everything you need to know when moving to another European country. You will find links to:

• Websites with descriptions of and explanations about European education and training systems.
• Websites with information on cost of living, tuition fees, finding accommodation, legal framework and other general information for European countries.
• Websites with exchange programmes and grants (Comenius, Erasmus, Leonardo da Vinci, Grundtvig, Youth in Action) available in European countries. Who to contact, how to apply for grants, etc.

To help you in your search for information you can contact the member of the Euroguidance network in your country.