Competitive universities? The impact of international and European trends on academic institutions in the ‘New Europe’

Abstract

This contribution examines the domestic reinterpretations of international and European recommendations in Central and Eastern European countries (CEECs). It asks under what conditions these institutional recommendations, but also global processes such as the university rankings, affect domestic public policies. The countries of Central and Eastern Europe, which have experienced a far-reaching reform process since 1989, have been particularly affected by new standards promoted at the European and international level. The article shows that the combined external and domestic pressures affect higher education institutions (HEIs) in multiple and sometimes contradictory ways. Based on the Polish and Ukrainian cases, it reassesses the (party) political factor in the reorientation of higher education (HE) reforms. It shows that Europeanisation and internationalisation are neither uniform nor linear processes. Ultimately, the announced diversification of HEIs appears as a longer-term process whose outcome remains uncertain.

The Impact of the Bologna Process on the Governance of Higher Education Systems in Eastern Partnership Countries

“…The third category is represented by Belarus, which became part of the BP in 2015, after being denied in 2012 (Gille-Belova 2015; Dakowska 2017). Belarus is the first country for which ex-post conditionalities were imposed in order to become a member of EHEA, which refer to the implementation of the fundamental values of EHEA, being presently under a careful process of monitoring by the BFUG (Yahorau and Antashkevich 2017).…”

“…On occasions, the influence of the Russian Federation was counteracted through the contribution of groups of experts from CEE. For example, expert groups from Romania had an important influence in configuring the new arrangements for the governance of HES in the Republic of Moldova (Toderaș 2012), as well as those from Poland in the case of Ukraine (Dakowska 2017) and Georgia. Moreover, many critical points of view came from the Central and Western Europe regarding the low performance of EaP countries in terms of achieving the objectives of BP and attaining stability and coherence of their HES.…”

“…Apart from the financial incentives granted by the EU through the Tempus and TACIS programs, the activity of pro-PB pressure groups was supported through top-down mechanisms. For example, an important role was played by UNESCO-CEPES (Conley Burrows 2017;Dakowska 2017), Council of Europe, as well as Open Society Foundations (Matei et al 2013;Toderaș and Stăvaru 2014;Terzian 2016;Dakowska 2017). Still, because their actions were sporadic, they did not manage to support, at least at the rhetorical level, actions for reforming HES governance.…”

The Reactions of Post-Soviet Countries Employees to Changes Carried Out by Organizations in Higher Education: Cases of Lithuanian, Ukrainian and Belarusian State Colleges

“…Researchers studying development trends of higher education in Eastern and Central Europe draw attention to the influence of historical experience in the long-term transformational perspective (Kwiek, 2001;Gaw-licz and Starnawski, 2018;etc. ), but their results are still ambiguous (Dakowska, 2017). In recent years, considerable attention has been devoted to various external challenges related to the quality of higher education and response to the needs of society (Tarlea, 2017;Dobbins and Kwiek, 2017;Dakowska, 2017;etc.).…”

“…), but their results are still ambiguous (Dakowska, 2017). In recent years, considerable attention has been devoted to various external challenges related to the quality of higher education and response to the needs of society (Tarlea, 2017;Dobbins and Kwiek, 2017;Dakowska, 2017;etc.). On the one hand, higher education sector is currently undergoing major structural changes, and insufficient financing of the sector remains an important factor (Dlouha et al, 2017), while on the other hand, specific problems of human resource management in organizations also have to be taken into account, which affects employees' reactions to changes because success of the implementation of reforms are crucial to that (Van Emmerik et al, 2009;Dasborough et al, 2015).…”