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The aim of this paper is to examine the status of national learned societies in social sciences and humanities (SSH) in Europe. Previous research shows that learned societies serve diverse roles in higher education and suggests that national societies come under pressure given different developments, such as internationalization or open science adoption. We investigate a comprehensive range of aspects within national learned societies: primary goals, activities, internationalization, organization, funding, membership, and recent changes, addressing potential pressures arising from them. Using a cross‐national survey involving 194 learned societies across eight European countries, we study: (a) do the previous findings from individual countries or small selections of national societies hold for a broad range of learned societies in SSH across Europe, and (b) are national learned societies coming under pressure due to internationalization and commercialization processes? Our findings confirm previous results from single countries and single disciplines and expand them as our results show that national learned societies in SSH play an important role in Europe in promoting multilingualism in science, collaborating with many stakeholders, and fostering interdisciplinarity. Contrary to previous research, most SSH societies in our study have not undergone significant changes in the past 5 years, challenging expectations of their declining role. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As part of the process of enhancing quality, quality culture has become a taken-for-granted concept intended to support development and improvement processes in higher education. By taking a theoretical approach to examining quality culture, starting with a scholarly examination of the concept of culture, and exploring how it is related to quality, quality improvement and quality assurance, the aim of this paper is to create a better understanding of how one can make sense of quality culture, its boundaries but also its links to the fundamental processes of teaching and learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Globalisation, together with readier access to capability-enhancing technologies and to technological insights once restricted to a few leading economies, are resulting in greater competition within Europe, and more widely within the developed world, for influence of all kinds (not just influence over the choices that foreign students make about the Higher Education courses on offer to them from Europe, but also influence of a more overtly imperialist kind, extending to the policies, incomes and futures of others). This article looks at trends in one important market for European Higher Education, the Middle East (particularly the GCC countries), which has many providers from North America and Australia. As observed by the late Edward Said, the USA is particularly forceful in the Middle East. Its technological superiority is accompanied by fervour to introduce American methods and curricula, and strong belief in their merit, reminiscent of the belief of the old French empire that ‘France had a “mission civilisatrice”, to civilize the natives”. The danger, highlighted in a recent UNESCO report ‘New Ignorances, New Literacies’, is that the natives will not be listened to. Is Europe listening more or less than the USA, and is it being listened to? Despite attention-gaining initiatives such as the proposed European Institute of Technology, EIT, and the commitment of EU governments to the Lisbon goals on competitiveness, there are indications of a drop in the influence of European Higher Education institutions in the Middle East. This paper explores the kinds of issues that may be at work, and the implications for European Higher Education policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]