No abstract

No abstract

The internationalisation of the academy varies according to individual, institutional and structural characteristics. Among factors influencing it, discipline plays a major role. Relying on data collected by two international comparative studies -the Changing Academic Profession Study and the Academic Profession in Europe Study -this article focuses on two aspects of the internationalisation of the academy -namely, international research collaboration and international mobility -asking whether these two aspects are associated with academic disciplines and how. Results from multivariate data analysescomparing Europe and the Rest of the World or other meaningful macro-regions -show that in some areas, such as international research collaboration and educational circulation, the international behaviours of academics belonging to different disciplines diverge, while in some others, such as research productivity related to international research collaboration and short-term professional circulation, they converge.

It seems appropriate to distinguish at least two aspects of academic freedom: (a) freedom from external constraints in choosing topics, concepts, methods and sources, which in western democracies generally enjoys a certain level of protection by law; (b) freedom to act in the pursuit of goals and values, with academic staff being in control of the relevant means to do so, which is generally strictly related to the overall organisation of universities and the higher education system at large. Both these aspects have been understood as necessary conditions for producing and disseminating new knowledge, i.e. the two main functions of higher education institutions. It can be added that academic freedom has been considered as one of the elements defining the academic profession, at least after the Second World War. On the one hand, academic freedom is strictly connected with the idea that the pursuit of knowledge for its own sake through research represents the main goal of the academic work. On the other hand, academic freedom and peer review are considered as necessary devices to ensure quality, i.e. quality is ensured by the self-steering capacities of academics or their professional autonomy. In the last few decades, several processes have had an impact on academic freedom: (a) the rise of higher education institutions as more autonomous corporate bodies, which has implied the strengthening of the role of administrative staff at the expense of the academic community, a trend that has been named ‘managerialism’; (b) the drive of governments away from more direct forms of control in favour of a system of distant steering, which has implied stronger accountability of higher education institutions and academics and the use of assessment devices; (c) the increasing demands to and pressures on academics and higher education by both the economy and society to support economic development, innovation, and social progress, a trend to which we refer to as growing expectations of relevance. The impact of the first two processes is quite clear and pertains mostly to relationships within higher education institutions and to the relationship between academics and the state. The impact of the last process is less clear and pertains to the relationships between academics and the external world, mostly the economy, but also society. Building on the results of the Changing Academic Profession survey, this article will address the issue of the growing pressures on academics to be ‘relevant’ to both society and the economy, and of the mechanisms through which the notion of relevance intrudes into the academic profession in selected European countries, especially evaluation, funding, and specific kinds of research activities.

The Italian higher education system was characterised from the outset (when the country was unified in 1861) until a few years ago by a single study cycle which followed on from senior high school. This cycle, which lasted four years (five in the case of engineering, and six in the case of medicine) led to the award of a legally recognised qualification known as a laurea.However, the Italian university system has changed over the years, partly in accordance with the trend towards studying for vocational qualifications, and it is now structured in three levels: a) the`short cycle' or university diploma course (lauree brevi or diplomi universitari); b) the degree course (corsi di laurea); c) research doctorates and specialist diploma courses (dottorati di ricerca e scuole di specializzazione).Degree courses, organised into faculties, are the main component of the university system (there are now 88 different types). In 1995±96, there were 417 faculties in Italy in some 65 universities, with 80 campuses. Some university diploma courses (physical education, statistics, primary school supervision, palaeography and musical philology, history of music and music teaching) were already operational in the 1970s. In 1982,`special-purpose colleges' were instituted to train social workers, ophthalmology assistants, rehabilitation therapists, etc. These courses were converted into two-or threeyear diploma courses in 1990. In 1992, many new diploma courses (usually accepting a fixed number of applicants) were instituted, thus increasing the supply of first-level university education.Diversifying the supply of higher education also led to the creation of postgraduate doctorate courses in addition to the existing specialisation colleges and advanced courses. The success of the first and third levels is still fairly modest, partly because of the difficulties encountered by holders of these qualifications on the labour market, where professional figures precisely matching their qualifications have not yet been established.The fact that the types of higher education offered are still insufficient is seen in the development of a non-university sector of post-graduate training leading to the award of a master's degree. Although this degree is not legally recognised in