On Policies, Evidence and Political Entrepreneurship: the Role of the European Union in Higher Education Research
On Policies, Evidence and Political Entrepreneurship: the Role of the European Union in Higher Education Research

Summary/Abstract: Two major developments mark the past quarter of a century in higher education research in Europe since the adoption of the Treaty of Maastricht. First among which is the formation of a pan-European level in higher education research as opposed to previously predominantly nationally focused research. Second, however, is the relocation of the research from the academia to a grey territory in the intersection of politics, policy, consultancy, administration and academic research, to the effect of weakening the extent to which science as a social institution guides the manner in which such research is being conducted and the results disseminated. Being driven by the European Commission’s formal need to stress the economic dimension of higher education and the EU’s strategic, although not necessarily well publicised, political agenda of evolving the European Union into a federal political system, higher education’s cultural agenda is being undermined and the scope of academic freedom enjoyed by the higher education research community in Europe restricted.

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