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This paper, based on extensive empirical work with Polish and Bulgarian scientists in Germany and the UK, examines the impact of the EU enlargement including the free movement of persons provisions on the mobility of scientists from Eastern to Western Europe. It focuses on early career researchers and particularly PhD candidates and begins by sketching out the status and ensuing free movement rights of those scientists in European Law. It then moves to discuss the policy rationale for promoting scientific mobility and examines how this fits with the scientists' own perspectives. Following on from there the paper looks at various areas where the EU enlargement has had an impact including the continuing transitional agreements, cheaper travel and the question of tuition fees, and goes on to consider the symbolic power of law in influencing scientific mobility. (Contains 28 footnotes and 1 tables.)

This paper focuses on the relationships between higher education and the labour market in Serbia. In order to understand this relationship better, this paper will first provide a brief history of the country and the history of its higher education structures. The paper will then discuss higher education from post Second World War until the fall of communism, highlighting how tertiary education met the goal of preparing young people for life in a socialist economy. The second part of the paper will discuss higher education after the fall of communism, and will show how higher education is not inadequately preparing Serbian graduates for the needs not only of the free market, but the new global economy. (Contains 3 tables and 1 footnote.)

This paper presents the development and validation of a two-level hierarchical cost model for tertiary education, which enables prospective students to compare the total cost of attending a traditional Baccalaureate degree education with that of the same programme taken through distance e-learning. The model was validated by a sample of Greek university students familiar with both traditional and distance learning who evaluated them in a survey, indicating that the cost advantage of distance e-learning was tempered by the perception that traditional learning has an advantage from the standpoint of quality. The paper also offers several strategies that might help address students' concerns about the quality of distance e-learning. (Contains 1 table, 3 figures, and 1 footnote.)

There is a growing awareness in the UK and mainland Europe of the importance of higher education to the development of a knowledge-based economy. European universities are increasingly required to produce highly mobile graduates able to respond to the ever-changing needs of the contemporary workplace. Following the Bologna Declaration (1999), higher education across Europe has expanded rapidly. This has resulted in questions being raised about the quality of the graduate labour market and the ability of graduates to meet the needs of employers. This paper analyses graduate and employer perspectives of graduate employability in four European countries (UK, Austria, Slovenia and Romania). In doing so it adds to current debates in this area. (Contains 1 footnote.)

This paper gives a short overview of the history of the Common European Framework of Reference (CEF) and European Language Portfolio (ELP) and explains their aims and functions. It then provides a summary of the ELP use in Europe and in Spain by showing a pilot study of its implementation carried out at the Schools of Civil Engineering and Architecture in the Polytechnic University of Madrid, as well as including specific data derived from this study. The general results obtained so far have been mixed. Thus, whereas positive effects on the learning process, learning outcome, and learner motivation have been observed, many drawbacks have been likewise encountered by students and teachers, such as the rigidness of the self-assessment descriptors, the difficulty in handling and updating, and the amount of time and work that the implementation of the ELP involves. Finally, in view of these difficulties and drawing from our own experience, some suggestions particularly applicable to our case study are shown (Contains 6 footnotes, 5 figures, and 1 table.)

Three views of higher education propose that it is functional, social service-oriented, or cultural, but any given higher education institution is more likely to be a hybrid of the three. (MSE)

This paper focuses on the relationships between higher education and the labour market in Serbia. In order to understand this relationship better, this paper will first provide a brief history of the country and the history of its higher education structures. The paper will then discuss higher education from post Second World War until the fall of communism, highlighting how tertiary education met the goal of preparing young people for life in a socialist economy. The second part of the paper will discuss higher education after the fall of communism, and will show how higher education is not inadequately preparing Serbian graduates for the needs not only of the free market, but the new global economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to outline the main higher education reforms in Germany, including the implementation of the Bologna Process. It takes as its focus the doctoral phase, conceptualised by "Bologna" as the third cycle of study but held by many to be the first phase of independent scientific research. In the context of increasing internationalisation of higher education and the European Commission's forecast that 700,000 more researchers will be needed (European Commission, 2003), it is vital to get the reform of the system right. The paper considers the effects of the German Higher Education Framework Act and regional laws as well as those of the Bologna Process on Germany's ability to recruit and train national and international doctoral candidates in the natural sciences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

2010 sees the end of the process of establishing the European Higher Education Area (EHEA). Although not all countries may have achieved all the objectives, many are those countries and universities who have implemented many of the targets set. Within the Bologna Process, there have been many developments such as: European Credit Transfer and Accumulation System (ECTS) for the transfer of period of study abroad; joint degrees; and quality assurance aspects among others. Guidelines for Quality Assurance and the development of an overarching European Qualifications Framework have been developed. While the Bologna Process brings with it many advantages on an education level, the discussion has not really considered the legal aspects of such a system. Once the EHEA is implemented comprehensively across Europe, situations may arise which would require universities to consider the legal aspects of learning that students may have experienced within different tertiary institutions. This paper considers what problems may arise, for example with fraudulent behaviour by students in the acquisition of ECTS credits in another university; with weaknesses or failure to prove quality of learning following an external quality assurance audit in another university; with the failure to deliver learning by one of the partner universities running joint degrees etc., and explores the possible legal implications of such situations as well as identifying the legal lacunae which exist and which need to be taken into consideration if the EHEA is to maintain the reputation that it aims for. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purposes of this paper are twofold: a presentation of the theoretical basis of benchmarking and a discussion on practical benchmarking applications. Benchmarking is also analyzed as a productivity accelerator. The authors study benchmarking usage in the private and public sectors with due consideration of the specificities of the two areas. Special attention is paid to the presentation of the current picture of higher education and conditions for the application of benchmarking. The chosen examples of benchmarking projects conducted in higher education illustrate the spectrum of benchmarking usage. The authors conclude the paper with a recommendation for the employment of benchmarking in the higher education environment, especially in the light of competition pressures and rapid economic development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2004 the Slovak Academic Ranking and Rating Agency (ARRA) was established as an independent body with the main goal of comparing the performance and quality of Slovak higher education institutions (HEIs) and providing the general public, the academic sector, and the government with an independent view of the quality of the country's HEIs. The first two rankings were published in 2005 and 2006 and the latest one was published at the end of 2007. The twenty public universities and their ninety-nine faculties were ranked in clusters according to the Frascati Manual. This paper describes the methodology and indicators used in this ranking exercise. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents the main results of a recent survey of private higher education institutions from twelve selected European countries (Austria, Germany, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Poland, Estonia, Bulgaria, Romania, Turkey, Ukraine, Russia) [in the framework of the UNESCO‐CEPES project on “Private Higher Education in Europe and Quality Assurance and Accreditation from the Perspectives of the Bologna process Objectives”, designed and implemented in collaboration with “Leon Koźmiński Academy of Entrepreneurship and Management (LKAEM) and the World Bank]. After a brief review of the current incidence of private education in the selected European countries, the authors give a description of the survey. Then the main findings are structured according to the nine goals of the Bologna Process and their corresponding level of implementation in private higher education institutions, and also to provide comparisons with public higher education institutions. The paper concludes with a discussion of the results and with some general remarks about the role of private higher education institutions in building the EHEA. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Education for All initiative is one of the best known and most widely referenced policies in the development field. This paper investigates the extent to which the most recent EFA conference in Dakar (2000) addresses the complex issue of women and higher education. Two questions guide this inquiry. First, what are the basic concepts and definitions used in a feminist policy analysis? Second, to what extent, and in what ways is the topic of higher education and women referenced in the document (Dakar Framework for Action, 2000).2 Employing content analysis, this paper reveals the EFA policy's minimal attention to tertiary education for women throughout the world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Bologna Declaration attempts to reform the structure of the higher education system in forty-six European countries in a convergent way. By 2010, the European space for higher education should be completed. In the 2005-2006 academic year, the University of Murcia, Spain, started promoting initiatives to adapt individual modules and entire courses to the ECTS-compatible credit system. In this paper, we describe the development of an experiment under the ECTS credit scheme for the module English Language and Literature I, a course for first year students of French Studies. This experiment took place in the 2005-2006 academic year. This was the first experiment of its kind to be carried out in the Faculty of Arts under the Bologna principles. A teaching team made up of three experienced language teachers was put together for this purpose. The experiment would have a very strict follow-through: three different types of questionnaires were designed and given to the students, teacher and observers respectively in order to establish how the new teaching plan was working. The data obtained from the questionnaires revealed how successful and rewarding this experiment was for the students and teachers involved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Access to undergraduate education has expanded rapidly in recent years. This is one manifestation of a rise in the relative importance of market-based resource allocation in higher education and a weakening of allocation based upon traditional views of merit. This change in priority has influenced the content of the undergraduate curriculum and introduced both content and methods whose legitimacy and educational value some question as universities market their products to attract enrolment. The paper discusses the relationship between allocation mechanism and "curriculum as product" and examines critically some of the more significant implications for undergraduate education such as course rigour and full-spectrum grading. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on two theoretical frameworks of integration (neo-functionalism and liberal inter-governmentalism), exploring their implications for current trends of integration in European higher education: the marketization of and trade in educational services, the involvement of supranational institutions, and the focus on quality assessment at the possible expense of academic freedom. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The development of higher education and research constitutes a possible pathway to innovation and global competitiveness. Nation states, however, often seek the quickest adaptations, with minimum investment, ignoring essential political and structural changes. Turkey maintains its highly centralized system of higher education observing the national policies in the field. This paper addresses the international aspects of Turkish higher education, with special focus on student and academic mobility. Present day Turkish higher education system has been shaped by two dominant major events: the post-Soviet era and the country's integration into the European Union. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This author focuses on the ethical aspects of conducting university research and teaching. What function does the university perform in making the contemporary world more humane, and what threats are connected today with this mission? Scientific work is, of course, also practised outside the university, and teaching does not have to follow the university model; however it cannot be denied that the university is a ubiquitous scientific and educational institution, the values of which should be remembered and emphasized in light of modern scientific and cultural developments. This paper highlights first the features specific to the university, with an emphasis on educational and cultural production. Next, the challenges faced by the university in the context of modern civilization are addressed. To conclude, a few personal observations about moral dimensions and challenges are shared. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

European universities must face the crisis of the Humboldtian model, and find new organisational solutions. This paper proceeds from two starting observations. The first is the one according to which we are in a “cultural shift” that makes culture the element on which performance, including technologically and cognitively, depends. The development of societies now depends on the culture shared by human beings more than on their economy or technology. The second observation is that culture itself and its ethical underpinning should be open for consideration. The development of society now depends on culture and on its adaptive capacity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses the apparent conspiracy of silence and/or culture of disinterest with regard to ethical issues in higher education. A first interpretation treats it as an almost entirely negative phenomenon – the subordination of university values to external political and market forces. The second interpretation, elaborated here, is more nuanced and less judgmental; the apparent erosion of the autonomy of the university and growing fuzziness of traditional academic values are seen as evidence not of decline-and-fall but of higher education's success within the expanding territory of the knowledge society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

European policy-makers hope that by 2010 tertiary education in European countries will be 'connected' and become the much sought for European Higher Education Area. The reforms currently unfolding will modernize the daily practices of European higher education institutions. From transferability of degrees, employing a credit-based system and improving the capital base of institutions, the shape and make-up of tertiary systems will yield more alignment from disparate systems with heterogeneous parts. The policy innovations in Europe, as a consequence, have implications for American policy-makers as well. As European tertiary education evolves, it will pressure American policy-makers to adapt and react, especially as its leadership in educational capital has slipped as a result of Europe's surge in degree attainment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In lieu of the usual ‘From the Editors’ piece, Jan Sadlak, Director of UNESCO-CEPES, and Henryk Ratajczak, Vice-President of the European Academy of Arts, Sciences and Humanities (EAASH), describe below the scope and highlights of the International Conference on Ethical and Moral Dimensions for Higher Education and Science in Europe, held in Bucharest on 2–5 September 2004. The articles in this issue, some of which are drawn from Conference presentations, are also introduced here. The Conference was organized by the above two organizations, in collaboration with the United Nations University (UNU) in Tokyo and the Division of Basic and Engineering Sciences of UNESCO in Paris. It took place under the joint high patronage of Mr. Jacques Chirac, President of the French Republic, and Mr. Ion Iliescu, President of Romania, and received further distinction in the form of special messages from Pope John Paul II, HRH Prince El Hassan bin Talal, and Mr. Koïchiro Matsuura, Director-General of UNESCO. All Conference documents can be accessed on the UNESCO-CEPES website, . [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents a comparative study of the recent developments of the academic profession in European universities drawing on the results of a policy questionnaire. First, it outlines that the profession is highly diversified and hierarchical, with an unsolved gender issue. Second, it discusses the reasons behind its attractiveness, paying particular attention to the balance between duties and salaries. Third, it presents evidence regarding the evolution of the profession in the context of the broader changes operating in the European higher education arena. And finally, it highlights the political issues that are likely to shape the evolution of the profession in the coming years and the pending political agenda. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This work reflects the results of a student survey and focus-group discussions and in-depth interviews with educators and policy practitioners to examine the connections between the higher education system and labour market demands in Azerbaijan. A notion of an Index of Students' Optimism regarding employment prospects has been introduced in this study. It is found that private university students are much more optimistic about employment opportunities as compared with their public university fellows. Available options are considered for the Azerbaijan state policy modernization in the higher education area that would promote students' capacity to cope with competitive challenges in the job market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2006, an international comparison study investigated the organization and management of university continuing education (UCE). The Finnish continuing education system proved to be especially advanced in this study. On the other hand, it became clear that Germany was still lagging behind in continuing education. In this article, German and Finnish universities are compared with respect to organizational forms and management structures in order to derive potentials for UCE and to identify decisive factors of success. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Competition for scarce resources causes institutions to become more similar because the uniform environmental conditions of competition bring forth similar responses. Consequently, there is a convergence of institutional function structures elsewhere. National higher education systems worldwide have been moving from a specialized regime towards an integrative regime. During the integration process, a hierarchical order begins to emerge, as organizational integration implies standardization, which measures institutions by one single set of criteria and tends to define them by rank or by the score they obtain compared to other institutions. The integrative regime then moves towards a hierarchical regime. In an integrated hierarchical system, research qualifications are usually the essential condition for access to resources and prestige. This has essentially become a worldwide phenomenon. This study attempts to draw on organizational behaviour theories (in particular the resource dependency, the institutional isomorphism and the neo-institutionalism models), and employs an organizational allomorphism perspective to develop a paradigm that helps explain this process. This approach draws also on the “glonacal agency” heuristic, and emphasizes the centrality of agency and hence the different responses and outcomes it produces in organizational behaviour, structure and pathways to change. It proposes, as a result, that higher education institutions are neither becoming strictly homogeneous and isomorphic at a national or global level, nor highly differentiated and polymorphic at the local-organizational level. They could rather be conceived as variants (not different forms) of the very limited number of institutional archetypes at global level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Beginning with a view of the role of tertiary-level educational institutions in the globalizing world and the condition of the Polish higher education system in 2007, the author presents the factors affecting the regional development as well as those that exert the strongest influence on long-term regional development. While examining current ventures undertaken by the Wyzsza Szkola Biznesu - National-Louis University (WSB-NLU), the author postulates a new model of higher education institution, 'the Fourth Generation University', which has a significant impact on its environment and also transforms itself. The postulated model has been supported by a brief description of a large project, launched in 2006, of the Nowy Sącz Network of Innovation and Knowledge Transfer and the Multimedia City. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The creation of a flexible education system, including procedures for the validation of previous education and other forms of knowledge should be one of the objectives of higher education institutions as well as other institutions that are engaged in adult education. To be effective, the system must be developed and implemented in partnership with employers, individuals and educational institutions. This article describes the situation with respect to the recognition of prior learning in EU countries and the Slovenian reactions to them. Moreover, it presents the results of empirical research which investigated the motivation of educational institutions to co-operate in the system established to validate non-formal and informal learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Centre for Higher Education Development (CHE) has designed a 'Ranking of Excellent European Graduate Programmes'. In its first round, in December 2007, this ranking concentrated on the natural sciences and mathematics. The centre applied a two-step approach for analysis. First, four general indicators were identified for European universities. Second, for those universities that excelled in at least three out of these four indicators which means that they achieved a gold or silver medal, an in-depth analysis was run based on institutional questionnaires and on-line surveys. The results show that Europe in general provides a very high level of research and graduate teaching in the academic fields that were analysed. It is intended to apply this approach to other academic fields in the near future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study deals with the introduction of an international grading scheme from the perspective of the educational providers, with the aim of creating a theory that accounts for their problems and actions. Interview data was collected from two institutions in a country participating in the Bologna Process. The results show that the educational providers are faced with a number of concerns and that they address these concerns by adaptation and adjustment. These two core processes are complemented by five additional processes: information seeking, trusting, safeguarding, problem-solving, and evaluation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article highlights the importance of improving the cognitive processes of students in business studies today. When developing a curriculum in business studies at higher education level, thorough consideration should be given to all components of the learning and assessment processes. They should be tailored to real world dynamics so that they benefit students when they enter the world of work, and thus become a yardstick of successful changes in the management of higher education marketing programmes themselves. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There are broad concerns in Italy about public sector efficiency. Within the public sector higher education (HE) has a major role, providing the economy with research outputs and graduates. Italian universities claim to have expanded teaching and research services to keep pace with the growth of the "knowledge society." An important question is whether this expansion is benefiting the Italian HE sector. To address this issue, the cost structure of Italian university system is examined. A quadratic cost function is employed to test both the existence of efficiency linkages between teaching and research services and the presence of scale economies. These results are used to investigate the implications of a more specialized HE sector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The importance of group learning has increased significantly in higher education in the past two decades (Houldsworth and Mathews, 2000). The primary focus of this study is to explore the feelings and experience of students regarding group work and group assessment in higher education. The study is exploratory based on a qualitative focus group approach. Interestingly, students felt that group work is a significant method to foster the development of critical thinking through discussion, clarification of ideas, and evaluation of others' ideas. Students consider "poor communication" and "poor attendance at group meetings" as the main challenges they face when working within a group. Also, students identified "dedicated assignment seminars" as the most effective tool, which could be used to enhance the effectiveness of group work. This study reinforces the findings of previous research into group work suggesting that the experience is a generally positive one for students. Results are discussed in the context of current theoretical and empirical work on group-based learning, education implications and areas for further research are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article considers some patterns of ranking higher education institutions which are used in the Russian Federation to reveal strengths and weaknesses in meeting the national individual, societal and state-related needs, as well as those of the international academic community concerning relevant information on Russian higher education institutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the impact of institutional and program-area rankings on student access to, and choice in, U.S. higher education. It also discusses the impact of rankings on student opportunities after graduation in terms of placement success and earnings. The discussion is informed by the broader research literature in these areas, and includes comparisons to findings for other higher education systems. The author concludes with comments on the likely effects of the newest addition to the rankings scene - so-called 'world' rankings - on access, choice, and opportunity outcomes globally. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents the findings of a survey, conducted on league tables and rankings systems worldwide, including seventeen standard ones and one non-standard league table. Despite the capacity of existing league tables and rankings to meet the interest of the public of transparency and information on higher education institutions, ranking systems still are in their "infancy". The authors suggest that, had international ranking schemes to assume a quality assurance role, it would be the global higher education community that would have to identify better practices for data collection and reporting to achieve high-quality inter-institutional comparisons. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The quest for legitimacy is particularly acute for organizations that are in the initial stages of their lifecycles. Without recognition and acknowledgment of the ‘right to exist’, new institutions may falter or fail because of lack of acceptance. Surmounting the barriers that block the road to legitimacy can be very difficult, but there are steps that can be taken to overcome such obstacles. This article examines the paths that new institutions of private higher education in Central and Eastern Europe have taken to assume a level of legitimacy that allows for their continued operations and future success. Its focus is to dissect the forces and factors that affect the movement of such new institutions along a described legitimacy continuum. Examination of key legitimacy factors as identified by private sector rectors in both Poland and Hungary reveals that there are country‐specific means that enable new institutions to transit the given legitimacy continuum expeditiously. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article describes two recent efforts to rank the quality of higher education institutions in Australia and New Zealand. After a brief discussion of goals, methods, and results, the author evaluates each ranking using the following questions: Does this methodological approach achieve its objective? Can other countries use the methodology by extension? What can we learn about a country's higher education system using this approach? The aim is to provide readers with a framework for thinking critically about rankings, and about the role they might play in measuring and influencing higher education quality on a global scale. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article assesses the quality of the Spanish higher education system, focusing mainly on the methodological challenges that the existence of public and private universities represents in the calculation of global higher education rankings. Researchers from the University of Barcelona and the University of Pennsylvania calculated the first ranking of higher education institutions in Spain, known as Ranking 2000, a few years ago. The report, Excelencia, calidad de las universidades españolas (Excellence: Quality of the Spanish Universities), included a detailed description of almost 100 indicators used, the data from all universities, and correlations between all indicators. In the present Ranking 2005, the authors present more recent data and an updated methodological discussion; finally, an improved selection of indicators supports a refined final index. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article assesses the impact of the Bologna Process on the grading schemes of EU member countries. In light of some problems regarding the implementation of the European Credit Transfer system (ECTS), the author proposes further reforms and offers some elements of a unified grading system for European higher education. The author explores the variation among Europe's grading systems and the resulting lessons learned are shared here. Lastly, this article also argues that principles of justice and fairness, deemed central to academic freedom, are best upheld by the use of a unified grading system at national and European levels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents an action plan for establishing a system of quality assurance for Croatian higher education. The action plan is forward-looking rather than retrospective and draws on experiences with adopting continuous improvement practices in Australia, Turkey, and the United States. Numerous authors have explored the challenges facing Croatian higher education, so we do not duplicate that task. We propose to adopt a continuous improvement system which will help modernize the system of education in Croatia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article seeks to analyse and draft an ethical framework of governance in the area of higher education and science. To this end, a distinction is made between ethical challenges as such, and preventive measures and remedies. An outline of ethical challenges to both higher education and science and governance is provided, addressing the quest for knowledge; conflicts with dignity and violations of academic equality; and failures in policing, responsiveness, and the balancing of aspirations. This outline is followed by proposed remedial or preventive ethical frameworks of governance, namely the cultural integration of governance and ethics, and the management of ethics and risk prevention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Is it still possible to combine two programmes of study in higher education, and if so, what are the characteristics of these double-students and what kind of obstacles do they face? In the Netherlands, about 10 percent of students in university education take two studies at the same time. Different theoretical approaches offer hypotheses to explain the choice of students for a second study, compared to students who pursue the regular one-study programme. Human capital as well as financial (socio-economic) capital theory provides some insights in this choice process. Education programme-related factors, as well as motivational and (social and academic) integration (Tinto, 1987) factors, will possibly be important determinants for pursuing one or two study programmes in higher education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article gives an overview and analysis of structural changes of higher education systems in Western Europe, and how the various countries have changed their systems over the last four decades. Emphasis is placed on the development of a non-university higher education sector in most countries. The question to be discussed is the extent to which the various countries converge to a common structural model for the organization of higher education - either a binary system which is the most common model today, or a unified but hierarchical system as in the United Kingdom. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this article is to demonstrate the key role of public relations in increasing the competitive advantages of higher education institutions. It identifies and describes the mechanism of the shift in interest from advertising to public relations that results from the increasing complexity of the environment of a private higher education institution. Moreover, the authors conduct an analysis of the main target groups of public relations activities, referring to the conceptual model of the "two markets" according to which a private higher education institution "sells" access to education to potential candidates and then "sells" its graduates on the labour market. The practical example of the marketing and public relations activities undertaken by the authors at the School of Banking in Poznan since 1994 are presented and elucidated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]