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In this paper, we focus on a rare scholarly theme of highly productive academics, statistically confirming their pivotal role in knowledge production across 11 systems studied. The upper 10 % of highly productive academics in 11 European countries studied ( N = 17,211) provide on average almost half of all academic knowledge production. In contrast to dominating bibliometric studies of research productivity, we focus on academic attitudes, behaviors, and perceptions as predictors of becoming research top performers across European systems. Our paper provides a (large-scale and cross-country) corroboration of the systematic inequality in knowledge production, for the first time argued for by Lotka (J Wash Acad Sci 16:317-323, ) and de Solla Price (Little science, big science. Columbia University Press, New York, ). We corroborate the deep academic inequality in science and explore this segment of the academic profession. The European research elite is a highly homogeneous group of academics whose high research performance is driven by structurally similar factors, mostly individual rather than institutional. Highly productive academics are similar from a cross-national perspective, and they substantially differ intra-nationally from their lower-performing colleagues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Higher education is increasingly acknowledged by national governments and international agencies as a key driver of development, and systems are expanding rapidly in response to rising demand. Moreover, universities have been attributed a central role in the post-2015 development agenda and the achievement of the sustainable development goals. Yet questions of institutional models and their differential impact on society have not received sufficient attention. This paper presents an analysis of the 'anatomy' of the university in order to identify the salient changes in the institution across time and location in relation to knowledge and relationships with society. A framework is proposed structured around three key dimensions: first, 'value'-the extent to which knowledge is treated as intrinsically or instrumentally worthwhile; second, 'function'-the role of the university in terms of storage, transmission, production or application of knowledge; third, 'interaction'-the flow of ideas and actors between the university and society. This analytical framework is then utilised to assess two dominant tendencies in global higher education: commodification and unbundling. Finally, implications are drawn out for universities' potential impact on development in low- and middle-income countries in the context of these contemporary trends. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2014, the Australian Federal Government attempted to de-regulate higher education fees so as to allow universities to set their own tuition fees. The associated public debate offer critical insights into how the identity of a student as a 'customer' of higher education is understood and deployed when developing higher education policy. This paper uses the 2014 Australian higher education reforms as a lens through which to further scholarly research into the student-as-customer metaphor and to see how it is influenced by the perceptions and understandings of policy actors external to the higher education sector. These include politicians, special interest groups, the students and their parents and prospective employers. This study reveals that the public/private nexus-both of funding and benefit-problematizes traditional conceptualisations of students and others as higher education customers. In turn, this restricts the ability or desire of policy actors to describe how the student functions as a customer as a consequence of market reform. This inability compromises the development of effective and sustainable higher education policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In many quarters, attempts are underway to identify learning outcomes in higher education which are context-neutral or ‘generic’; such measures could provide new ways to assess and compare outputs from higher education. This paper considers potential challenges in using such broad learning outcomes across contrasting disciplinary and national settings. An empirical contribution is provided by an analysis of data from the international REFLEX survey for Norwegian and English bachelor’s degree graduates. This sheds some light on the relationships between graduates’ broad learning outcomes (general competencies), their national contexts and their disciplinary area. It finds variations in competencies across subjects and countries, suggesting that general competencies of the type often suggested as generic learning outcomes may be unstable and problematic to compare across contrasting settings. It highlights the need for comparative research into variations in learning outcomes and graduate competencies considering disciplinary and national factors. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Japanese education has been a focus of comparative studies for the past 20 years. Many scholars have attributed the economic success of this industrialized society to a highly literate and well-educated population. Recent studies, however, have tended to be more critical of, in particular, Japanese higher education (HE). Indeed, most universities in Japan are acutely aware of the need for change and a considerable effort at institutional reform is sweeping the nation. Unfortunately most of the constructive criticism of Japanese HE has not yet been published in English. One of the most vocal of the reformists, Professor Ikuo Amano, has published widely on various aspects of HE in Japan. The following paper is a translation of a chapter in his book Challenges to Japanese Universities. This translation is prefaced by both a synopsis of this book as well as a brief introduction to Amano and his work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]