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This paper addresses the puzzle of the unlikeliness of the implementation of elements of the Bologna Process agenda in Europe and post-Soviet higher education systems. Following mainstream policy science theories, the policy initiative would be qualified as "prone to failure", but surprisingly many governments took up the challenge to develop regulations and guidelines and to change the structures of their higher education systems. Looking at the adoption of Bologna process elements in various countries – east and west – I will be able to point at factors that contribute to explaining why and to what extent countries engaged with the process and hence to contribute to the literature on Europeanisation and policy adoption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the context of globalising higher education (HE) policies, there is an increasing interest among scholars in detecting patterns of policy change, including the rate and magnitude of policy change and the direction of change (convergence or divergence) This paper adds to that literature by comparing the pattern of policy change and by providing theory-based explanations for HE policy change. The national quality assurance (QA) policies for universities in England and the Netherlands were compared (1985–2005) based on an analytical framework drawing on new institutionalism. Key findings were that both QA systems moved in the direction of an extrinsic QA orientation, but the differences between the two systems were larger in 2005 and in 1985. The degree of policy change in England was more incremental, the Dutch case showing rather radical change in 2002. These dissimilarities can be ascribed to the different policy change mechanism: bricolage and translation. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper proposes a new perspective for higher education policy research. It introduces the concept of policy object to designate the discrete preoccupation(s) of a policy text (e.g. a new governance regime, a quality system, or new degrees) and suggests that actor conceptualisations of the policy object intersect with other elements in the policy process to shape enactment and outcomes. First, the policy object concept is described. It is argued that the policy object does not have an objective existence and two concepts are proposed to explain it: ontology and enacted ontology. The former refers to what actors believe the policy object is, a socially-construed context-determined conceptualisation, whereas enacted ontology refers to what the policy object becomes further to enactment under the influence of ontology. Second, the paper presents the findings of a comparative study of master degrees further to the Bologna process in different national and institutional settings to illustrate the policy object approach. This research puts forward arguments to suggest that the policy object could be an important variable to consider in policy research. This somewhat different lens, inviting fine-grained attention to a specific policy object (its ontologies and enacted ontologies), could bring additional insight into policy outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the development of a system of easily readable and comparable qualifications within a single Qualifications Framework in the European Higher Education Area (QF-EHEA) as part of the Bologna process. Employing a path dependence approach, combined with new understandings of critical junctures and incremental policy change, as our conceptual lens, we find that multiple self-reinforcing events between the 1998 Sorbonne Declaration and the 2005 Bergen Communiqué, in the form of Declarations and Communiqués, guided implementation of the Bologna policy process, along with elements of incremental layering. We also see evidence that policy formation and implementation are self-reinforcing in the context of the development of the QF-EHEA. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

European quality assurance has a complicated history that must be viewed as taking place on two levels: first, in a national effort to deregulate the public sector and to make universities accountable for their teaching performance; and second, a supranational endeavor to accomplish European integration in the field of higher education. Similarly, the web of institutional constraints and opportunity structures in which accreditation agencies are embedded spans two policy levels, the national and the European. In this paper, we examine how German accreditation agencies achieve some level of autonomy in a highly entrenched institutional environment. The paper is based on a qualitative study comprising archival data and over 70 semi-structured interviews. Drawing on the insights of neo-institutional theory, we argue that quality assurance agencies seek political leverage at the European level in order to strengthen their standing in the higher education systems of their own countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides an overview of the theoretical and empirical framework of the debate on widening participation in higher education and explores to what extent the lessons learnt in this field have been applied in the field of public policy. Widening participation is based on the assumption that the probability of entering and successfully completing higher education is contingent on a complex range of social, economic and cultural characteristics of potential students, and that the measures aimed at widening participation must acknowledge the multi-faceted nature of inequities in education. In this context, this paper analyses the extent to which international stakeholders in higher education acknowledge widening participation as a priority. Special attention is given to the question of whether their policy documents take into account the results and implications of empirical research in this field. Finally, the paper assesses the potential impact of these documents on the debate on this topic in Croatia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Student-centred learning has gradually come to the foreground of the Bologna Process. In parallel, learning outcomes have been advocated as key degree descriptors, illustrative of student-centred approaches. This paper examines learning outcomes in their diverse understandings and enactment in three European countries – England, Portugal and Denmark – further to Bologna policy developments. Resorting to a conceptualisation of the intersection between global and local policy fields and to policy theories highlighting the interpretative nature of policy processes, the implementation of learning outcomes is analysed from the perspective of different policy fields (European, national and institutional). Variation in understandings and usage has been observed especially between the institutional fields in the three national contexts, as well as between academic practice and student experience. A discrepancy has also emerged between the policy discourse which highlights students' centrality in a learning-outcomes-based approach and the limited relevance of learning outcomes to students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the past two decades regional agreements have become more significant in educational and training. This paper situates and analyses the European Higher Education Area (EHEA), the Bologna Process and the Lisbon Strategy and explores their influence on the integration of higher education systems in Mercosur (the Southern Common Market of Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay and Venezuela). Mercosur is still a customs union, and the project of integrating higher education is at an early stage. Lacking organically established regional bodies, coordination of integration in Mercosur has focused on summits and meetings of officials. However, in a context of unequal maturity in regional integration, there is emerging evidence that the EHEA project is influencing the reforms of national systems of higher education and even Mercosur’s model for a regional area of higher education. A nascent Europeanization of higher education systems in the Mercosur region is emerging, by-passing Mercosur’s regional structures. The formulation of policies has been permeated by policy transfer from Europe to national territories within Mercosur. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]