This contribution provides an overview of the developments of research undertaken since the mid-1990s on international higher education. The general state of research is characterised by an increase of theoretically and methodologically ambitious studies without a dominant disciplinary, conceptual, or methodological “home.” The main topics of research on internationalisation in higher education reach from mobility, mutual influence of higher education systems, and internationalisation of the substance of teaching and learning to institutional strategies, knowledge transfer, cooperation and competition, and national and supranational policies. The modes of inquiry are varied but have not changed much over time. A brief localisation of the role of the Journal of Studies in International Education in the context of research about internationalisation in higher education is followed by conclusions emphasising a certain amount of continuity but also a broadening of the field with an increasing number of ambitious studies. The contribution closes with a few proposals for future research.

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This contribution is based on an extensive literature review of student dropout in Europe, which was carried out by a research group of the Danish Clearinghouse for Education in cooperation with an international expert group in 2012/2013. The review served to answer three basic questions: What is dropout? Why does it occur? What can be done to reduce or prevent it? Only empirical studies were included in the review and altogether 44 studies were included. The article points out that student dropout is a more complex and multidimensional issue than most people think and that it is important to distinguish between formal dropout (i.e., leaving university studies altogether before degree completion) and transfer (i.e., changing subject and/or institution). The review summarizes and discusses the main results of the 44 studies included in terms of nine dimensions: (a) study conditions at university, (b) academic integration at university, (c) social integration at university, (d) personal efforts and motivations for studying, (e) information and admission requirements, (f) prior academic achievement in school, (g) personal characteristics of the student, (h) sociodemographic background of the student, and (i) external conditions. The conclusions provide an answer to the three questions posed above and include recommendations for further research, university leadership, and policymakers.

The first part of the article provides an overview of the changing policy contexts in Europe and North America in which doctoral education and training are embedded and points out the similarities and differences of the ongoing debates and concerns about doctoral education in the two world regions. The second part provides some insight into the differentiation of motives and purposes of doctoral education which has led to a differentiation of the models for doctoral education based on a clearer distinction between a research and a professional doctorate. In the third part, a number of networks, projects and initiatives concerned with reforming doctoral education are introduced to serve as an illustration of the direction current changes are taking. The last part draws some conclusions, emphasising in particular the fact that knowledge production has become a strategic resource in the emerging knowledge economies and thus an object of policy‐making and institutional management. This development tends to lead to a concentration of research and research training in fewer institutions.

In this article, global and other university rankings are critically assessed with regard to their unintended side effects and their impacts on the European and national landscape of universities, as well as on individual institutions. An emphasis is put on the effects of ranking logics rather than on criticising their methodology. Nevertheless, it is briefly outlined what rankings measure and whom they serve. The second part takes a look at impacts of rankings on the European, national and institutional level. A third part casts rankings as a particular form of transnational policy coordination which enabled the European Commission to design its own policy script with regard to rankings. In the conclusions it is argued that ranking results have, in turn, become indicators or proxies for the economic competitiveness of nations, thus making the actual reality of universities and what they are about disappear. Thus, rankings constitute a de‐contextualised symbolic value which is truly postmodern and create a new material reality which is no longer related to its original.