John Brennan

This chapter ‘connects the dots’ between the outcomes of the CINHEKS study and relates these to contemporary higher education research practice and policy. This conclusion summarizes our main theoretical and conceptual findings, central empirical results and methodological advances in a way that illuminates the key issues and questions brought into view by the CINHEKS study, as a whole. Our findings are critically contextualized in terms of general challenges in higher education studies, which borrow far more than we generate, especially in terms of theory, conceptual problematization, methodology and methods. Theoretically, the analytical synthesis of network knowledge society is highlighted, as is our coining of the term universtasis, a conceptual problematization resulting from the cross-case analysis of fieldwork carried out by all CINHEKS project teams. The competitive horizons heuristic is spotlighted, as CINHEKS was the first time it was used in an international comparative higher education study. The chapter secondly focuses on the most important empirical findings of the CINHEKS study, focusing on findings regarding the role of place, higher education traditions, academic fields and the way in which comparative framing reveals the way these obscure – in distinct ways – the tensions between policy discourse, actual scholarly practice and societal outcomes. The cross-case analysis of the CINHEKS mixed-methods sequential studies; moving through descriptive, interpretive and explanatory levels of analysis reveals the limitations associated with much of the normative framing used every day by researchers and policy makers alike. In addition, interdisciplinary inquiry focused on comparative policy analysis, novel historical framing, shifting competitive horizons and the use of social network analysis sheds new light on both established and emergent forms of stratification within academe – and societies – in a manner that defies much of the oversimplification and guess work that passes for local and national-level ‘explanations’. Comparative framing spotlights that much publically available information profiled by higher education may obscure more than it reveals across distinct methodological nationalism(s), particularly regarding changing values. Methodological advances are also featured, as they were integral to the outcomes of this study. These include our team’s focus on process and the relationship between challenges, opportunities and research team dynamics and how these resulted in the development of the HEI profile, the incorporation of social network analysis in a comparative study, along with key lessons learned, regarding research design and execution. We conclude the chapter with some of the key questions and issues we believe now come into view because of the overarching finding of the CINHEKS study. These questions and issues are important for policy makers, researchers and higher education’s most important stakeholders.

ABSTRACT This report has been prepared for the Higher Education Funding Council for England using data collected as part of a study commissioned by the European Commission through its Targeted Socio-Economic Research Programme. The study was completed in November 2000 and the international project report has been submitted to the Commission. Other reports and articles based on the results of the project will be published during 2001 and beyond. The European study was led by Ulrich Teichler of the Centre for Research on Higher Education and Work at the University of Kassel in Germany, and was undertaken by research teams in Austria, the Czech Republic, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom. The authors of this report wish to record their debt to their European and Japanese colleagues and also to Zsuzsa Blaskó and Deana Parker at the Centre for Higher Education Research and Information for putting the finishing touches to this report.

The promise of social and economic benefit, for individuals and crucially for societies, provides the main justification for increased investment in higher education in both developed and developing countries. Confidence in human capital theory continues to underpin the belief in economic benefit from higher education investment. In addition much recent writing on the rise of “knowledge economies” assigns an important role to higher education institutions. Higher education is also regarded as having the potential for contributing to other political and social changes through its support and underpinning for the institutions of civil society. This latter role is particularly important in some developing countries. Thus, higher education appears to play a central role in supporting both advanced forms of capitalism and new forms of democratic citizenship. From these perspectives, it may reasonably claim to be about nothing less than the transformation of society.

This edited collection attempts a challenging task – to explore the place that higher education plays, and has potential to play, in a lifelong learning context that is both lifelong and lifewide. An introduction argues for the strengthening of the tripartite core university ...

This chapter focuses on the growing differentiation of institutional types, functions and roles of the academic profession. It reports on changing external relationships between universities and other social institutions and considers the implications of these changes for the roles and careers of the academic profession. More specifically, this includes changes in identities and in power distribution, shifts from ‘collegial’ to ‘competitive’ relationships between staff, new roles and divisions of labour, greater ‘boundary’ crossing – between both institutions and academic subjects and new forms of insecurity.

Two surveys involving approximately 8,000 university and polytechnic institute graduates in Germany and the United Kingdom were conducted to analyze employment; income; position and status; work assignments; gender differences; and influence of type of institution, subject of study, and socioeconomic background. Experiences of British and German graduates were similar.

The paper describes the early employment experiences of forty sociology graduates from a northern polytechnic. Questionnaire and interview data are reported under the headings of occupational choice, employment, graduate identities, and future plans. This material is discussed in the broader context of the changing relationship between higher education and the labour market and is related to the published statistics on the first destination of graduates.

The paper considers the growing diversity of higher education systems and institutions by exploring three main trends of expansion, differentiation and globalisation together with linked features concerning new forms of governance and more responsive relationships with other social institutions. At the heart of this expansion and differentiation are a number of tensions concerning the role of modern higher education systems: to do with balancing autonomy and responsiveness, reproductive and transformative functions, public and private benefits, economic and broader socio-political agendas. The paper goes on to ask whether future knowledge societies will continue to need separate institutions of ‘higher’ education and, if the answer is yes, what form these will take.

In The Higher Education System , Burton Clark provides a model for the organisational analysis of higher education institutions and systems. Central to the model are the concepts of knowledge, beliefs and authority. In particular, Clark examines how different interest groups both inside and outside the university shape and subvert the management of change. Within the university, Clark notes the tensions between the 'enterprise' and the 'discipline' and at the system level between the state authority, the market and the academic oligarchy. In considering the applicability of Clark's model to an understanding of today's higher education systems and institutions, one can note a weakening of boundaries both within higher education institutions and between them and other institutions of society. Arguably, there has been a lessening of the organisational distinctiveness of universities and an invasion by the language and ideas of the business world. The broadening ...

What Can Be Done? There are no simple solutions to combating the problem of educational corruption in Georgia. To start with, it is important to engage in an ongoing systematic study of the phenomenon and its causes through research; student, faculty, and administration surveys; and to encourage public interest and involvement in higher education. Higher education reform should include not only changing systems and regulations but also empowering students and faculty to take initiatives to combat corruption. Systemic changes may include reforms in state financing of education that encourage private-sector development and competition among universities; creation of a transparent accreditation system; design of standardized national examinations; reform of regulatory and tax systems and procurement procedures; decentralization of management to individual institutions; establishment of professional ethics codes for university faculty and administrators by encouraging professional assoc...

As higher education has expanded, it has diversified both in terms of its institutional forms and the characteristics of its students. However what we do not know is the extent to which it has also diversified in terms of 'what is learned'. In this book the authors explore this question ...

... Brennan, John and Shah, Tarla (2003). Report on the implementation of progress files. Centre for Higher Education Research and Information, Milton Keynes, UK. ... OF PROGRESS FILES John Brennan and Tarla Shah Centre for Higher Education Research and Information ...

... Dr. Liv Støren Norwegian Institute for Studies in Research and Higher Education, Norway. ... higher education institutions (Murdoch, 2002a, 2002b), further education (Sagmeister, 2003), job motivation and satisfaction (Schomburg, 2003) and career and mobility (Stavik & Arnesen ...

... López, Daniel Martinez Aceves, Jose María Nyssen González, Luis Vila), Sweden (Kenny Petersson, Daniel Samuelsson), Switzerland (Sabina Schmidlin, Katrin Schönfisch, Andrea Witmer) and the UK (John Brennan, Lore Arthur, Rod Hick, Brenda Little, Alan Woodley). ...

... submitted by Ulrich Teichler (Co-ordinator) in co-operation with Per Olaf Aamodt, Clara AasaArnesen, Lex Borghans, John Brennan, Hans Heijke, Sandra Jones, Paul Kellerman, Osmo Kivinen, Brenda Little, Roberto Moscati, Jean-Jacques Paul, Risto ...

ABSTRACT About the book: This volume presents a rich account of the development of accreditation and evaluation in 20 European countries. The authors are leaders in the field and they have cooperated in this effort by writing richly different, often deep and insightful analyses of the situation in their country. The two editors have added a synopsis detailing the main trends, and sketching commonalities as well as contrasts in the developments across Europe. The book shows how accreditation is becoming a main mechanism in the steering of higher education all over Europe. The book is unique in its analysis of forces driving towards the spread of different models of accreditation in the emerging European Higher Education area. Readers will obtain an up-to-date picture of the state of affairs of accreditation in the framework of evaluation activities in Europe. They will gain an understanding of why accreditation and evaluation systems have evolved the way they have, and subsequently, they will obtain more realistic views on potentialities for European comparability and cooperation in this area. This volume is of interest to researchers and policy-making staff in higher education, especially those involved at the level of national systems for quality assurance, accreditation, internationalization and the Bologna process. It is also of interest to Master/PhD students in (higher) education management.

... Does clinical audit offer any solutions to the difficulties of integrating external and internal quality assurance agendas? Most European countries are developing quality assurance systems for higher education which have both institutional and subject-focused aspects. ...

... e) Khasnis, D.;Lee, J.; Brewer, M.; Emge ... to span more than one metal center, combined with the tendency of the rare earth metal ions to maximize coordination numbers, generally leads to the formation of polymetallic species%4 unless the metal coordination sphere is saturated ...

Weakly binding azide ligands have been used as surface caps in the synthesis of lanthanide oxo and selenido clusters. Addition of NaN3 and Na2O to in situ prepared solutions of Ln(SePh)3 in pyridine results in the formation of (py)18Sm6Na2O2(N3)16 or (py)10Ln6O2(N3)12(SePh)2 (Ln = Ho, Er), with the Sm and Er compounds characterized by low temperature single crystal X-ray diffraction. Attempts to prepare chalcogenido derivatives by ligand-based redox reactions using elemental Se were successful in the preparation of (py)10Er6O2(SeSe)2(N3)10, a diselenido cluster having crystallographic disorder due to some site sharing of both SeSe and N3 ligands. These compounds all detonate when heated.

"Ln(TePh)(3)" (Ln = Er, Tm, Lu), prepared in situ by the reduction of PhTeTePh with elemental Ln in the presence of Hg catalyst, reacts with elemental Te to give heterometallic clusters with the formula (py)(7)Ln(3)HgTe(4)(TePh)(3). Structural characterization of all three isostructural derivatives reveals a cubane arrangement of metal ions, with a distorted tetrahedral Hg(II) ion coordinated to three mu(3) coordinate Te(2-) and a terminal TePh ligand. There are two chemically inequivalent types of octahedral Ln(III) ions, one bound to three Te(2-) and three pyridine donors, and two that coordinate two pyridine, three Te(2-), and a terminal TePh ligand. The Lu compound decomposes at elevated temperatures to give LuTe.

... Phys. 1994, 75,4171-4175. (g) Takahei, K.; Taguchi, A,; Harikoshi, Y.; Nakata. J. J. Appl. Phys. 1994, 76, 4332-4339. ... (Salem, NJ). NMR Spectra were obtained on either a Varian Gemini 200 MHz or Varian 400 MHz NMR spectrometer at 23 "C, and are reported in 6 (ppm). ...

Crystalline coordination complexes of Sm(EPh)2 (E = Se, Te) are described. The selenolate compound Sm(SePh)2 is unstable in solution, but a divalent selenolate can be prepared and isolated when precisely 1 equiv of Zn(SePh)2 is present to form heterometallic [(THF)3Sm(mu 2-SePh)3Zn(mu 2-SePh)]n (1). This compound is a 1D coordination polymer with alternating Sm(II) and Zn(II) ions connected by an alternating (1,3) number of bridging selenolate ligands and three THF ligands bound to each Sm(II) ion. The tellurolate Sm(TePh)2 forms a stable pyridine coordination compound (py)5Sm(TePh)2 (2) that is isostructural with known Eu and Yb benzenetellurolates. Both compounds were characterized by conventional spectroscopic methods. Polymer 1 was characterized by low-temperature single-crystal X-ray diffraction, and the unit cell of the tellurolate was determined. Crystal data (Mo K alpha, 153(5) (K) are as follows. 1: monoclinic space group P21, a = 10.666(2) A, b = 16.270(3) A, c = 12.002(3) A, beta = 114.81(2) degrees, Z = 2.2: orthorhombic space group Pbca, with a = 13.865(3) A, b = 16.453(5) A, c = 31.952(7) A, Z = 8.

[(THF)3Sm(SePh)2Zn(SePh)2]n decomposes to give a variety of products, including [(THF)8Sm4Se(SePh)8](2+)[Zn8Se(SePh)16](2-), an ionic cluster that can also be prepared in more than 60% yield by stoichiometric addition of Se to a mixture of Sm(SePh)3 and Zn(SePh)2. The isostructural Nd compound [(THF)8Nd4Se(SePh)8](2+)[Zn8Se(SePh)16](2-) was also prepared by the stoichiometric route to establish the viability of this cluster type with redox-inactive Ln. In addition, the salt [Yb(THF)6](3+)[Fe4Se4(SePh)4](3-) was isolated and structurally characterized. These ionic cluster materials illustrate the difficulties associated with doping Ln ions into covalent metal chalcogenido matrixes.

ABSTRACT Fluorinated thiolates form particularly stable chalco-genolate complexes with the lanthanides. Both Sm-(SC6F5)(3) and Eu(SC6F5)(2) were prepared by transmetalation. The Sm compound is a dimer in the solid state, with a pair of bridging thiolate ligands connecting the two sm(III) ions, while the Eu(II) compound is polymeric. In both compounds there are clearly defined Ln-F interactions. Thermolysis of the Sm compound gives SmF3 and (C6F4S), (n = 2, 3, 4).