Higher education policy dynamics in turbulent times-access to higher education for refugees in Europe. Studies in Higher Education, online first, 1-12.

The study provides an insight into student perspectives on quality in higher education, using Harvey and Green conceptualizations as the point of departure, and exploring the linkages between the views on quality, the developments of the Bologna Process and related national reforms, as well as students' motivation for and expectations from higher education. Using the data collected in a survey of the student population in several European countries, the study shows that students have a multifaceted perception of quality in higher education, very homogenous with regards to 'quality as transformation/added value' perspective, but rather polarized with regards to 'quality as value for money' perspective. Students seem to prefer perspectives that put them in the centre of the process, though not necessarily only as active participants and cocreators of the higher education experience, but potentially also as passive consumers. The results show some blurring of the boundaries between the more traditional Humboldtian and the consumerist views on higher education among students.

This thematic issue introduces the multifaceted nature of contemporary public policy-its multi-level, multi-actor and multiissue features-using the case of higher education policies from around the world. To do so, this introduction first describes how higher education as a policy sector should be garnering far more attention from scholars interested in political, economic and social transformation. A framework for identifying and accounting for how the 'multi-s' characteristics configure and re-configure public policy is then introduced. Next, this thematic issue's contributions are summarized with highlights of how they bring to life the different 'multi-s' features. This introduction concludes with a discussion of what the proposed framework of the 'multi-s' offers to studies of higher education policy coordination. In so doing, the objectives of this thematic issue are to highlight what the case of higher education policy coordination offers to studies of public policy and to initiate a dialogue between all social scientists and practitioners interested in the increased complexity of governing, producing and using knowledge today. This thematic issue of Policy and Society focuses on the increased multifaceted characteristic of contemporary public policy (Peters, 2015). Using the case of higher education policies from around the world, we highlight the multi-level, multi-actor and multi-issue-'multi-s'nature of public policy in areas of growing international and political attention. The global shift towards knowledge-based economies and societies has placed 'knowledge' at the core of contemporary public policy and policy-making. The governance of knowledge, however, is not a neatly contained policy coordination exercise: it requires collaboration across multiple policy sectors that may have previously experienced very little or less interaction. A non-exhaustive list of relevant policy areas includes higher education, research, trade, foreign policy, development and home affairs (migration). Higher education policy coordination is thus permeated with respective sectoral concerns, with discussions taking place across distinct policy arenas, sometimes in silo, both inside and

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Many studies analysing partisan politics assume differing preferences based on a party's ideological background without providing matching empirical analysis. This is especially true for more specialised policy areas like higher education policy, which are not included in studies such as the Comparative Manifestos Project. While the limited existing literature inadequately focuses only on the re-distributive dimension of partisan competition, the main theoretical argument of this article is that in order to fully capture partisan dynamics, it is necessary to include a second analytical dimension, which addresses the question how higher education is governed. Based on this framework and the ideologies of different party families, theoretical expectations for partisan preferences are deduced. Subsequently, these expectations are tested using originally coded election manifestos and a detailed qualitative content analysis for all relevant parties in four European countries (the UK, Germany, Norway and the Netherlands). The findings show that parties do hold differing preferences which can be structured along the two dimensions. While many parties fulfil the theoretical expectations, there is also a fair amount of variation within party families, which can be explained by pointing to the importance of institutions, their legacies and resulting constrains for the formation of partisan preferences.

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Using the seminal contribution by Gornitzka and Maassen on hybrid steering approaches in higher education as a foundation, this paper offers three main contributions. First of all, an analysis is provided of how the concept of hybrid steering approaches has been used since 2000 in the higher education literature. Second, the paper delivers a theoretical underpinning for the existence of hybrid steering in higher education stemming from institutional theory and policy analysis. Third, the paper deepens and broadens the concept of hybrid steering emphasizing the permanence of hybrids, their potential homogeneity and convergence over time. Furthermore, their relation to multi-level governance arrangements as well as interaction between global scripts and national filters is addressed. In the conclusion, several avenues for future research are offered.