Is There a Need for a European Institutional Research?

Abstract

Recent changes in European higher education have accompanied a strong desire and need by national ministries to have comparable data across institutions and a growing recognition from campus leaders that effective planning and decision-making requires reliable institutional data and analyses. This has induced changes and restructuring of duties and roles of administration, administrative staff and academic staff. In North America, internal institutional data analysis is often referred to as institutional research. We examine the roles and functions of institutional research within North America and how the changes within European higher education have created a purpose for institutional research. Specifically, we explore the topical areas of institutional assessment, data management, institutional governance, as well as the changing identity of academic professionals within European universities. Within our examination, we explore indepth one European country's higher education system to demonstrate how history, culture and legislative changes manifest into a need for institutional research.

Internationalisation as marketisation? Tuition fees for international students in Finland

“…The Finnish Universities Act granted institutions of higher education a new legal status as either corporations subject to public law, or foundations subject to private law (Law 558/2009). The new legislation also changed the internal dynamics in making it possible to impose managerial rather than collective governance, effecting a shift from academic to more instrumental, top-down governance (Mathies and Välimaa, 2013; see Olsen, 2007). This new governance system was criticised by university staff (Aarrevaara, 2012: 91; Salmela-Mattila, 2014: 54).…”

The impact and influence of rankings on the quality, performance andaccountability agenda

“…Effective leadership and management carry requirements for unprecedented levels of professional expertise and training, and institutional capacity and systems to underpin strategic decision-making and monitor and evaluate university performance. Universities are also required to provide common national data about students and research, and other matters (Huisman, Hoekstra, & Yorke, 2015;Mathies & Välimaa, 2013). Institutional research (IR) has been an evolving field of "organisational intelligence" (Terenzini, 1993); European HEIs are only beginning to develop such capacity.…”

Framework and operationalisation challenges for quantitative comparative research in higher education

“…Technological progress with respect to software, computing power, digitalisation, connectivity and communication has made it easier to retrieve, store and analyse data. Moreover, the global competition for prestige, growing demands for accountability and efficient use of resources, as well as the introduction of new steering instruments and the professionalisation of administrative staff, have increased the need and capability of higher education institutions (HEIs) to collect information (Chirikov, ; Mathies & Välimaa, ). In parallel, university associations increasingly gather information on their members, and national datasets have become more accessible thanks to the Internet, and more comparable through the standardisation of indicators.…”