Transitioning into a knowledge economy and spurring knowledge-based growth have been key objectives for policy-makers across advanced capitalist countries over the last two decades (Hall 2015). Undoubtedly, universities are central to this process in various and fundamental ways, ranging from providing the labour market with highly skilled graduates to contributing to the research base that is expected to foster countries’ innovative potential. As a consequence, the interest of public and private actors on universities has never been higher (Regini 2011). Yet, despite the surge of interest, patterns of change of higher education systems remain under-theorised and under-specified (Schulze-Cleven 2016). This panel seeks to shed light on how higher education systems across advanced capitalist countries are changing. Specifically, through a set of five complementary papers, it aims to make three main contributions. Firstly, it provides novel lenses to theorise the national and supra-national politics of higher education; secondly, it sheds light on meso-level patterns of change that occurs through the intensified interaction between universities and actors (e.g. firms) that respond to different logics of action; thirdly, it explains under what circumstances higher education systems drive, accommodate, or oppose the process of change in the face of competing demands posed by a diverse set of actors.

References:
Hall, P. A. (2015). How Growth Regimes Evolve in the Developed Democracies. Paper presented at the 22nd International Conference of Europeanists, Paris.
Regini, M. (2011). European universities and the challenge of the market. Chelthenham: Edward Elgar Publishing.
Schulze-Cleven, T. (2016). Higher Education Reloaded. EuropeNow.