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Purpose: This paper aims to ask how the European Higher Education Area (EHEA) has orchestrated a sustainable development (SD) agenda in its international policy since 2020. Design/methodology/approach: By drawing on theoretical ideas around policy orchestration as a key UN governing strategy and applying them to the analysis of the progression of the SD agenda in the EHEA, the paper conducts a thematic analysis of six recent key EHEA international policy documents and 19 interviews with key Bologna stakeholders in France, Germany and Italy. Findings: The resultant analysis uncovers three overarching key themes that show the EHEA has the capacity to mitigate pitfalls in the UN's SD agenda; some weaknesses of the UN's orchestration of SD are translated into weaknesses in the EHEA's formulation of its SD agenda; and the further development of an SD agenda as an essential direction of EHEA's work. The paper then goes on to discuss how EHEA policies only mention SD discourse, omit concrete plans for its implementation and keep the very meaning of SD ambiguous throughout international policy documents. Originality/value: The authors offer three original recommendations that the EHEA should adopt in an attempt to mitigate the issues raised in the run-up to its 2030 deadline for implementing its policies: the EHEA should develop an explicit definition of SD; recognise the Euro-centredness of EHEA policies and open them up to other voices; and cite academic research when developing policy documents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research examines the incorporation of Design for All (DfA) in the human nutrition and dietetics curriculum within the European Higher Education Area (EHEA), aligning with the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD). A bibliographic review in the Scopus database focused on literature connecting DfA with this degree. The study also analyzed Spain's legal and educational frameworks, including ANECA's White Book and Order CIN/730/2009. The findings highlight a gap in explicitly including DfA in Spanish universities' curricula for this degree. The paper stresses the importance of integrating DfA across essential courses like public health and diet therapy. It suggests a pedagogical approach blending theory, problem-solving, and service-learning to foster an understanding of inclusivity. The article proposes strategies for embedding DfA in the curriculum, recommending the development of specific subjects and integrating DfA content into existing courses. This approach aims to prepare future professionals to offer inclusive nutrition and dietetic services, ensuring equitable access and participation for all, including those with disabilities. This curricular integration is vital for addressing societal needs and upholding quality and inclusivity in health services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the attempt to make a further step toward a research-based definition of the core professional development needs of teachers of languages for specific purposes (LSP), this paper aims to upgrade the framework of professional development needs of LSP teachers developed by Bocanegra-Valle and Basturkmen (2019). With this objective in mind, the paper will examine the differences in the professional development needs of LSP teachers in the European Higher Education Area (EHEA) based on their experience with LSP teaching in higher education, qualification level, and LSP taught. The results suggest that the core LSP teacher professional development needs are distributed across the categories of course development, knowledge of the target discipline/profession/industry, knowledge of language use in the target discipline/profession/industry, peer collaboration, and professional development opportunities. Efficient LSP teacher professional development could be based on a three-stage model: a general LGP teaching methodology course, followed by a general LSP teaching methodology course, and finally discipline-specific acculturation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The European Higher Education Area (EHEA) is an international initiative for the harmonisation of higher education (HE) systems in 49 countries. Literature about UK's participation in the EHEA is limited, and the role of EHEA's membership for the UK, particularly after the end of the Brexit transitional period, has not been researched. The originality of the study reported in this paper is in addressing this gap by exploring the perspectives of key UK HE actors on the strategic significance of UK's memberships in the EHEA post-2020 for the UK. The paper draws on the theoretical ideas of rational choice neo-institutionalism, differentiated Europeanisation and internationalisation, and a thematic analysis of 19 official communications of key stakeholders and six in-depth interviews with their representatives. The findings contribute to filling in a significant gap in the literature about Bologna in the UK in making a distinction between its two memberships in the EHEA and the differences and complexities of the roles they play in constructing UK's overarching agenda in HE particularly in the post-Brexit context. The article has also contributed to the literature about Bologna more widely, presenting an investigation into differentiated Europeanisation that has been taking place within one unique post-EU country. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The European Higher Education Area was implemented as a result of the Bologna Process and set the mobility of students and staff as its main goal, suggesting tools to facilitate it. The European Union has supported the suggested measures, as mobility can be a way to support a common European identity and a strategic way to improve the quality of higher education institutes. Architectural studies, due to their special character as both an art and a science discipline, are chosen as the education area most suited for mapping degree mobility and highlighting the characteristics that differentiate each school in terms of attraction to international students. How do architectural students select the school to continue their studies? On what criteria is that based? There were more than 351 schools of architecture in the European Higher Education Area with 49 participating countries at the time the research was conducted. Do international students choose them at the same degree? What makes a difference between them, causing some of them to become famous schools of excellence while others are barely visible in the international competition? To answer the above questions, a research based on two questionnaires was conducted during the academic year 2018-2019. The aim of both questionnaires was to map the state of the art in architectural studies and determine the criteria students value the most to make their choices at master studies. The process of combining the data collected from both questionnaires showed that the study programmes and the city or country of the school are the main reasons for master's students to choose a specific school and for schools to stand out. This is followed by the criteria: offered studies' quality, institution's reputation, teaching language, the host city's economy, giving students the possibility to work during and/or after studies, the offer of third cycle. The paper concludes suggesting changes schools could implement if they wish to get a better position in the competitive market of attracting international students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In today's age of knowledge and technology, societies are changing fast, on both macro and micro levels. Hardly anyone could have predicted several years ago such an acceleration of change and its impact on society, and in particular, on higher education. In Europe as well as globally, higher education has been undergoing many changes for more than two decades. In many countries, the number of higher education institutions has increased, mass education has replaced more elite systems, universities have adopted different agenda, and research has become more competitive. In this new context, doctoral education has also needed to be redefined in order to better respond to societal and academic challenges. Doctoral education—a crucial segment of higher education and the main link between the European Higher Education Area and the European Research Area—has been receiving continuous attention for more than 15 years. This paper provides an overall view on changes in doctoral education in Europe, the background of this change process, and the context that led to these major changes. The main analysis will be presented from a European academic context perspective, but it will also reflect a global perspective. It will provide an analysis of all the milestones and consider the relevant policies and recommendations on the supranational level and their reflection on the national level. While taking the reader on a 15‐year journey of the doctoral education system in Europe, a brief look to the future of doctoral education will be sketched as well. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Twenty years after the signing of the Bologna Declaration, this special issue contributes to a discussion of the Bologna process with a particular focus on the implementation of the two-cycle degree structure (3+2) and the practices and paths of higher education students. In this introduction, it is argued that there is a need for more research concerning the policy as text, that is, the way the Bologna process is enacted by students and teachers in their daily practices. The 3+2 degree structure has indeed affected the practices of students, particularly by introducing a new transition and decision point in many countries. However, when considering the Bologna policy as text, it becomes visible that there are differences in the students' concerns and practices across the six countries represented in the papers in the issue. This is not only the case due to differences in the national contexts prior to the Bologna process, but also to the role of other factors affecting the enactment of the policies. Thus, there are variations in the implementation – for example, concerning the social dimension – and the enactment differs due to national as well as programme differences, and differences related to academic disciplines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines how dominant discourses disseminated through quality assurance processes in Greek Higher Education (re)define academic work and language use in a globalised HE field. Drawing on Bernstein's theory of pedagogic discourse, we approach government-led external evaluations of university departments as official policy texts that encode the evaluative criteria of quality institutions and valorise specific forms of knowledge and conduct. Our analysis of empirical material derived from selected HE departments illustrates that performance measurement systems interlink English as a default language with mobility and research activity in a unified discourse of quality constructing a selective understanding of how Higher Education Institutions and academics are expected to attain international visibility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents an analysis of an increasingly political nature of the rationales behind the memberships of the UK and Germany in the European Higher Education Area (EHEA). This analysis is guided by rational-choice neo-institutionalism and is based on expert interviews with key stakeholders in both countries as well as their relevant official communications. This article serves as an important stepping-stone to the investigation of the link between EHEA memberships and its signatories' external politics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Learning innovation is a positive approach on the contemporary higher education international stage. This article stresses the need to devise physical spaces that are also innovative. For that purpose, using a qualitative methodology, we investigated recent trends based on the synergies between certain creative disciplines: architecture, music, and fashion. The comparison was based on compositional features and formative dimension. Using a qualitative methodological comprehensive approach, a set of case studies was analysed. The findings show the usefulness of activating these synergies as effective strategies when enriching educational processes in different ways. Six cases of excellence wherein university physical spaces reached levels of innovation were studied, representing relevant transfers among the three disciplines. The text presents examples that show the educational consequences in the establishment of those synergies, in terms of both composition (music-architecture) and the activation of heritage sites in the city as venues of learning innovation (fashion-architecture). The basic conclusions were based on the fact that the increase in teaching and spatial creativity that emanates from said synergies among the three disciplines can be potentially extrapolated to other areas of knowledge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study analyses international student mobility (ISM) in Europe since the 1999 Bologna Declaration. International mobility of higher education students is both a driver and a consequence of the Bologna Process and emerges as a relevant issue in a wide range of research areas. This literature review develops a qualitative content analysis of the set of high-performance articles published between 2000 and 2018 and identified through a wide range of bibliometric tools: direct (first generation) citation counts; indirect or accumulated impact; early influence; adjusted impact with respect to year of publication, type of document, and discipline; and alternative metrics that measure interactions in the internet and social media. The content analysis focuses on the pending achievements and main challenges to ISM, among them: attracting non-European students to whole degree programs, the need for actual and further convergence in programs and systems to ensure real compatibility, the impact of HE ISM on the promotion of the European citizenship and consciousness, the sharp imbalance between credit and degree mobility, the need to strengthen the link between ISM and employability, the existing social selectivity in European ISM, the frequent social segregation problems faced by international students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]