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Higher education research in Europe still gaining momentum

As the year 2014 is winding to its end, we continue to witness ascend of higher education research in Europe. Membership in the three academic associations based in Europe that focus on higher education research – the Consortium of Higher Education Researchers, European Association for Institutional Research and Society for Research into Higher Education – continues to grow steadily, as it does participation in their annual research conferences. In addition, a tightly-knit and strong community of higher education researchers works within the European Consortium of Politics Research. European Sociological Association has had a strong section on Higher Education at this year’s research conference. The Higher Education section of the European Educational Research Association every year shows signs of expansion. Research on higher education institutions and other knowledge producers is an important feature of the European Group for Organizational Studies. It appears that higher education research in Europe is still gaining momentum. More demands for higher education researchers and specialists come from the higher education institutions and governments. Those running higher education institutions are facing increasingly complex decision-making in institutions which have complex organizational structures and work in fast changing higher education environments. They seek more and better ‘institutional intelligence’ as they try to figure out how to fulfil the demands from various stakeholders and try to envisage the position for their institution in national and global higher education ‘marketplace’ (Klemenčič, Šćukanec, and Komljenovič, forthcoming). Development of quality assurance units and units for collection, analysis and reporting of data on institutional operations is particularly pertinent on the institutional level. ‘Institutional intelligence’ is needed also to guide the development of specialized units within university operations, such as research management and technology transfers (including support for onerous applications to the European Unions’ Horizon 2020 Programme), teaching and learning excellence (ranging from student assessment to teaching-training for academics), student services, financial and legal management, etc. Professionalisation of higher education institutions also means strengthening of the middlemanagement and administrative tear within organizational hierarchy and these professionals require specialist education or training. Similarly, governments and governmental agencies seek better ‘higher education intelligence’ to inform their policies and instruments. Governments across Europe are strengthening the research capacity in their own structures and within government agencies and national quality assurance and accreditation bodies. The forthcoming third edition of the Worldwide inventory of higher education research centers, academic programs and journals and publications, prepared by Laura E. Rumbley, Philip G. Altbach and several colleagues at the Center for International Higher Education at Boston College (Rumbley et al., forthcoming) offers evidence of an impressive spread of higher education as a field of research, training, and publications (Altbach, forthcoming). European Journal of Higher Education, 2014 Vol. 4, No. 4, 301–302, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/21568235.2014.971640