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This comparative case study for the EU-supported HEInnovate project investigates how three higher education institutions use digital platforms to support teachers in their professional development and build communities of practice. The compared cases in this study are the Fachhochschule Campus Wien (Austria ), the Metropolitan University Budapest (Hungary) and the University of Agder (Norway).

This comparative case study for the EU-supported HEInnovate project looks at how Dublin City University (Ireland), the University of Innsbruck (Austria) and the Polytechnic Institute of Viana do Castelo (Portugal) have developed their networks with the non-profit sector with the aim of encouraging social entrepreneurship, particularly among their students.

This booklet summarizes the experiences of eight European higher education institutions in applying the HEInnovate self-assessment tool. HEInnovate was developed to support higher education institutions in their efforts to become more entrepreneurial. The booklet describes the various steps that these institutions can make to embed entrepreneurship in their education, research and knowledge transfer processes. These steps can be supported by the HEInnovate tool and some additional features that were added as part of the EU-financed BeyondScale project. The booklet also provides recommendations and guidelines for enhancing the use and usefulness of the HEInnovate tool and methodology.

This study maps the system-level approaches to higher education and vocational education and training graduate tracking across the European Union and the European Economic Area, and their progress towards achieving the requirements of the Council Recommendation on tracking graduates. It finds that about two thirds of the countries have system-level graduate tracking in higher education and vocational education and training. The remainder will have to make considerable improvements if they are to establish system level graduate tracking in the next five years. Ongoing reforms indicate an increasing use of administrative data and a combination of administrative data and surveys to track graduates. The involvement and cooperation of key bodies, including those in charge of the policies and those holding the data and the methodological expertise, are key to successful tracking. A benchmarking of national graduate tracking measures shows that the most significant areas for improvement are a) the coverage of the whole graduate population in both vocational education and training and higher education; b) the inclusion of all (including cross-border) graduates and drop-outs; and c) having a longitudinal approach to tracking. A first survey among higher education institutions found that graduate tracking is generally well-embedded in higher education institutions across EU and EEA countries.

This report provides a review of different policies that promote access to higher education, participation and completion by students from under-represented groups, such as low socio-economic or educational backgrounds, ethnic minorities, migrants and refugees. This study formulates a typology of main policy levers used by Member States, regions and/or higher education institutions to stimulate widening participation and social inclusion in higher education., JRC.B.4-Human Capital and Employment

NOKUT commissioned two research centres in the Netherlands and Belgium to find success criteria for establishing and developing a culture for quality enhancement at universities and university colleges. The research institutes conducted a literature survey on the topic as well as case studies at five excellent educational centres in Europe. The project ends with a summary of success criteria, and aims to inspire Norwegian institutions and NOKUT’s advisory and quality enhancement activities. The two institutes are Center for Higher Education Policy Studies, University of Twente, The Netherlands (CHEPS) and The Centre for Higher Education Governance Ghent, Ghent University, Belgium (CHEGG). The report was commissioned in the summer of 2015 and was finalized by the autumn of 2016.

Improving completion and reducing dropout in higher education are key concerns for higher education in Europe. This study on dropout and completion in higher education in Europe demonstrates that national governments and higher education institutions use three different study success objectives: completion, time-to-degree and retention. To address these objectives policy makers at national and institutional level apply various policy instruments. These can be categorized under three main policy headings: financial incentives; information and support for students; and organizational issues. The evidence indicates that countries that have more explicit study success objectives, targets and policies are likely to be more successful. Particularly if the policy approach is comprehensive and consistent. As such, it is important that study success is an issue in the information provision to (prospective) students, in financial incentives for students and institutions, in quality assurance, and in the education pathways offered to students. Furthermore, increasing the responsibility of higher education institutions for study success, for example in the area of selecting, matching, tracking, counselling, mentoring and integrating students in academic life is clearly effective. Finally, to support the policy debate and monitoring of study success evidence, there is a need for more systematic international comparative data and thorough analysis of the effectiveness of study success policies

The implementation of Research Training Groups (RTG) by the German Research Foundation at the beginning of the 1990 was one of the major steps towards a reform of doctoral education in Germany. A main intention of the RTG was to increase the efficiency of doctoral training. RTG aimed at a lowering of time-to-degree and age-at-graduation, also at achieving a higher degree of transparency as regards the supervision and training of doctoral students. To achieve these goals RTGs were implemented as temporary research units with a focused (interdisciplinary) research and study program at universities. Given this background the paper will compare processes, training conditions of the RTG along the following lines: • As regards efficiency we will have a closer look at the time to the doctorate. • Regards the conditions of doctoral training the RTG will be compared to other forms of doctoral training for those aspects that the RTG tried to change. • Finally, the paper will investigate in the question to what extent different conditions of training and other determinants have contributed to achieve more efficiency in terms of shortening the time to the doctorate. To answer these questions a comparative analysis will be done. The paper will be based on a survey among former doctoral students who pursued their doctorate in Germany during the 1990s. In this survey former members of RTG as well as former doctoral students who were graduating in a different, traditional setting had been integrated. These two groups will be compared. In total individual data from 1,424 doctorates from a wide range of different academic disciplines graduating from their doctoral studies between 1995 and 2000 will be analyzed

This report “Higher Education and the Labour Market” builds upon the previous report and aims to digging a bit deeper into some themes in the countries Belgium, Denmark, England, Finland, Germany, Sweden and the United States, and update developments since the first review in 2011. The following themes will be guiding in this report: labour market relevance, steering instruments of the government, involvement of employers, labour market information and public-private providers. The focus of this study is the extent to which labour market considerations are taken into account in decisions on educational provision.