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Doctorate level attainment has increased significantly in developed economies. In 2019, the average share of 25–64-year-olds with a doctorate across the OECD was around 1%. However, if current trends continue, 2.3% of today's young adults will enter doctoral studies at some point in their life. This essay starts by describing the expansion of doctoral education. It then reflects on the causes of this growth and the consequences for the nature and purpose of the doctorate. This reflection is mostly based on published research in Higher Education in the last 50 years and the author's work on policy analysis for the OECD on this topic. The paper finishes with a research agenda on doctoral education and the career of doctorate holders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Programmes to encourage the return of migrants living with irregular status are prominent in many OECD countries. Bearing titles like ‘assisted voluntary return and reintegration’ (AVRR), they are often rationalized as a more humane alternative to forced deportation. Critics question their voluntariness, suggesting they are actually an extension of the deportation apparatus. While broadly sympathetic to these criticisms, this paper offers a novel perspective on AVRR. We argue AVRR is reshaping what we call the political imaginary of deportation. Focusing on the International Organization for Migration (IOM), a leading architect of AVRR, we insist scholars take seriously the visual images and narratives through which voluntary return is discursively constructed. First, we discuss the political imaginary, and clarify what this concept brings to deportation studies. Second, we present a mapping of the political imaginary of deportation as this appears within IOM information campaigns concerning AVRR. We organize this material in terms of three analytics: returnees as activists, return journeys as homecoming, and deportation as self-reinvention. In the eyes of many activists and migrants, deportation has very negative and painful connotations. We show that IOM reimagines the landscape of deportation in a positive light. We call this move the deportation twist. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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The long anticipated ubiquity of digital technologies is now established in the developed world. The manifestations and consequences are not entirely as predicted, perhaps nowhere more so than in the classroom. Amid a clamour for the banning of mobile phone use in school, it is timely to reflect upon the Utopian dream of an enriched experience of education mediated by computers and consider where it all went wrong. Computer‐mediated instruction was supposed to free learners from the constraints which were preventing them from achieving their full potential. The barriers erected by inadequate teaching, impoverished curricula and limited assessment systems would be removed through the introduction of intelligent tutoring systems, worldwide access to information and comprehensive assessment protocols. In reality, the majority of OECD countries are still struggling to ensure that all school leavers have an adequate level of numeracy and literacy to serve their own and the national economy's needs. This paper considers policy and practice in the introduction of digital technologies in schools as recorded in the available research evidence. The data sources are predominantly from the UK with some US examples. What emerges goes to the heart of what is meant by a good education. Anticipated contribution to the Special Issue theme: This paper will address the theme Government policy: national visions for educational experience through the lens of government‐led innovation in curriculum definition and high‐stakes assessment as a device to manage school accountability. The data sources will be predominantly from the UK with some US examples. It will draw heavily on recent desk research supported through an award from the Nuffield Foundation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To assess potential public concerns, this paper examines theory and evidence surrounding graduate educational underemployment (overeducation) in this era of mass higher education. Using a new, validated, index of graduate jobs, we find that the prevalence of graduate underemployment across 21 countries is correlated with the aggregate supply-demand imbalance, but not with indicators of labour market flexibility. Underemployment's association with lower job satisfaction and pay is widespread. Yet in most countries there are external benefits (social trust, volunteering, and political efficacy) associated with higher education, even for those who are underemployed. Taken together with existing studies we find that, in this era of mass higher education participation, under-employment is a useful indicator of the extent of macroeconomic disequilibrium in the graduate labour market. We conclude that governments should monitor graduate underemployment, but that higher education policy should be based on social returns and should recall higher education's wider purposes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes the expansion of higher education (HE) in OECD countries and discusses its economic consequences. For most governments this expansion has been seen as the silver bullet that improves economic growth and helps tackle problems of inequality. However, in most countries increasing numbers of graduates are going into jobs that were once done by non-graduates, raising the concern that the true social returns to HE expansion are low. Because of this it is unsurprising that economists have found it difficult to establish firm links between higher education expansion and economic growth. At the same time, in some countries, HE expansion has exacerbated problems of economic and social inequality. The paper argues that governments need to take a more realistic view of the role of HE, consider alternative ways of preparing people for the labour market, and at the same time explore more rigorously exactly how the sector is conducting itself. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The restructuring of state education systems in many OECD countries during the last two decades has involved a significant shift away from an emphasis on administration and policy to an emphasis on management. The "new managerialism" has drawn theoretically, on the one hand, on the model of corporate managerialism and private sector management styles, and, on public choice theory and new institutional economics (NIE), most notably, agency theory and transaction cost analysis, on the other. A specific constellation of these theories is sometimes called "New Public Management," which has been very influential in the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada and New Zealand. These theories and models have been used both as the legitimation for policies that redesigning state educational bureaucracies, educational institutions and even the public policy process. Most importantly, there has been a decentralization of management control away from the center to the individual institution through a "new contractualism" – often referred to as the "doctrine of self-management" – coupled with new accountability and competitive funding regimes. This shift has often been accompanied by a disaggregation of large state bureaucracies into autonomous agencies, a clarification of organizational objectives, and a separation between policy advice and policy implementation functions, together with a privatization of service and support functions through "contracting out". The "new managerialism" has also involved a shift from input controls to quantifiable output measures and performance targets, along with an emphasis on short-term performance contracts, especially for CEOs and senior managers. In the interests of so-called "productive efficiency," the provision of educational services has been made contestable; and, in the interests of so-called allocative efficiency state education has been progressively marketized and privatized. In this paper I analyze the main underlying elements of this theoretical development that led to the establishment of the neoliberal university in the 1980s and 1990s before entertaining and reviewing claims that new public management is dead. At the end of the paper I focus on proposals for new forms of "the public" in higher education as a means of promoting "radical openness" consonant with the development of Web 2.0 technologies and new research infrastructures in the global knowledge economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The finance of higher education faces a clash between technological advance, driving up the demand for skills, and fiscal constraints, given competing imperatives for public spending. Paying for universities is also immensely politically sensitive. This paper sets out core lessons for financing higher education deriving from economic theory, including the desirability of loans with income-contingent repayments. Subsequent discussion includes a general strategy for OECD countries derived from the theoretical analysis, and reforms in England in 2006 which illustrate the strategy. The paper concludes with discussion of the appropriate role of government in higher education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Higher education systems globally have seen major increases in women's participation and the overall trend in OECD countries has been a transition from the traditional male majority in enrolments to a substantial female majority. Prompted by a recent reversal of this trend, this paper explores gender differences in participation in higher education in 27 OECD countries between 1971 and 2015. While increased participation by women was thought to be part of the solution to persistent gender inequalities we argue that this is not an inevitable outcome. Our argument is based on an analysis of changes in the gender composition of the student population, using available secondary data. We explore how changing gender differentials are linked to the concurrent massification of HE, changing distribution of enrolments by field of study, changes in sex segregation by field, features of national education systems and wider social structural differences related to gender. Our analysis examines the complex interaction between discipline-specific levels of sex segregation and overall levels of gender parity. We argue that that sex segregation needs to be considered alongside women's long-standing higher participation rates to understand why the latter has not triggered a transformation in the gendered division of labour. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aspirations for higher education by people from low socioeconomic status backgrounds are now a focus of government policy in many OECD nations. This is part of a global trend emphasizing the perceived benefits of 'raising' aspirations among under-represented groups as a social inclusion strategy to widen university participation, but also ultimately as a strategy to increase national competitiveness in the global knowledge economy. Yet despite its importance, aspiration tends to carry simplistic meanings in much higher education policy and practice. This paper attempts to craft a more nuanced account of the term, informed by four concept-clusters derived from sociological and philosophical literatures and research, and with a more mutual relation of public and private interests. It complements this 'intellectual craftsmanship' or 'systematic reflection' (Mills in The sociological imagination, ) with data drawn from a future-focused survey of secondary school students from low and low-mid socioeconomic status backgrounds in regional Australia. Results from the survey provide illustrations that help expand understandings of student aspirations for higher education, from a group presumed to be deficit in aspirations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

'Learning gain' has become an increasingly prominent concept in debates about the effectiveness of higher education across OECD countries. In England, interest has been heightened by the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE)'s major research initiative on learning gain, launched in 2015, and by the new Teaching Excellence Framework which assesses learning and teaching and student outcomes. HEFCE's novel research initiative has funded a set of experimental projects across the English higher education sector for the first time. This paper presents preliminary findings from one such project at the University of East Anglia (UEA). The project trials and evaluates three approaches to identifying and measuring learning gain using data from cohorts of students across different discipline areas during 2015-2016 and 2016-2017. It builds upon previous work carried out at UEA in developing self-efficacy assessments and applying concept inventories. Student marks provide a simple comparator as a third approach to measuring learning gain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the notion of a ‘just imaginary’ for social inclusion in higher education. It responds to the current strategy of OECD nations to expand higher education and increase graduate numbers, as a way of securing a competitive advantage in the global knowledge economy. The Australian higher education system provides the case for analysis. Three dilemmas for social inclusion policy in this context are identified: questions of sustainability, aspiration and opportunity. The paper argues that while social inclusion policy has ‘first-order’ effects in higher education, ajustimaginary is required for more inclusive ‘second-order’ effects to be realized. It concludes that transformation of the current imaginary will require a more robust theorization of relations between social inclusion and higher education, to give new and unifying meaning to existing practices and to generate new ones. Short of this, social inclusion may be little more than justimaginary. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper is a macro study on higher education R&D and its impact on productivity growth. I measure the social rate of return on higher education R&D in 17 high-income OECD countries using country level data on the percentage of gross expenditure on R&D performed by higher education, business, and government sectors over the period 1981–2006. Empirical results suggest that lagged R&D performed by higher education is positively affecting productivity growth in all specifications. The long-run propensity of productivity growth to R&D performed by the higher education sector is also found to be positive and significant while it is found be insignificant to business R&D. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper evaluates data validity of available empirical sources and the extent of services sector labor market impact of offshoring in the US, EU-15 and Japan. A three-tier data validity hierarchy is identified, while the employment impact of offshoring in the three regions is found to be limited. Correspondingly, developing Asia is unlikely to experience large-scale employment gains as a destination region. Instead, the crucial role of domestic entrepreneurs in the growth of the Indian IT-related services industry is highlighted, as are the twin educational challenges facing developing Asia: the need to improve both primary and higher education simultaneously. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to lay out future scenarios related to the impact of the intensification of competition between universities and research centres of OECD countries on the stocks and flows of university graduates in Latin America. In conditions of intensified competence, it is possible that the ways in which Latin American countries, universities and university professionals participate in the processes of international mobility will change significantly. This paper proposes different scenarios, combining hypotheses about the global dynamics of skilled mobility and migration of graduate students (conditioned by the behaviour of the demand in developed countries), about their main impacts on Latin America, and about the responses that Latin American governments and universities could make to face this process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aims to analyze the research performance of 38 OECD countries in the last 10 years. For this purpose, the research performance of these countries was analyzed using multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) methods with the productivity and publication impact data of 38 countries. The analyses were conducted both normal data and also with adjusted data based on the population and income level of the countries. Firstly, the importance level of research performance criteria was determined by three different MCDM methods. Using the weight values obtained from these methods, countries were ranked by three different MCDM methods used for ranking purposes. According to the results of the study, the publications in the highest cited 1% were determined as the most important and distinctive criterion. Secondly, the criterion expressing the relative impact of publications on the world was determined as the second most important criterion. In the analyses conducted without normalizing the data, USA showed the highest research performance. In the analyses conducted by considering the population of the countries, Switzerland showed the highest research performance. In the analyses conducted by taking into account the income level of the countries, Estonia has the highest research performance. As R&D expenditures, development level of countries and international collaboration increased, research performance of countries increased. However, with the increase in domestic collaboration, there has been a decrease in research performance. In addition, this research has shown how to use MCDM in the measurement of research performance by using objective methods with different backgrounds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There have been changes in the political economy since the 1980s, and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) has changed as well. Scholars have noted shifts in OECD discourse in some policy fields since that time: shifts away from what might be called classic neoliberal perspectives. This paper reflects on the changes in the political economy and in OECD and explores how they might be related to changes in OECD discourse in higher education. Specifically, it examines country reviews of higher education systems conducted by OECD in the mid-1990s and the late-2000s for evidence of shifts in its higher education discourse. Instead of a softening of neoliberal perspectives, it finds a further entrenchment of assumptions associated with neoliberalization. It also describes what appears to be a deepening contradiction in the discourse concerning the private and public benefits of higher education. Finally, it reflects on how the contexts of the political economy as framed by OECDs discourse, affects its proposed goals and strategies for higher education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

From international comparisons we know that the German education system is more socially selective than many European or Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries and has only been slowly catching up during the last several years. At the same time, German higher education (HE) has consisted mostly of public institutions that were not allowed to charge tuition fees. Only since 2005 have some of the Länder allowed for a modest tuition fee of €500 maximum.While the German higher education system seems to be struggling with the task of including disadvantaged students and those with a non-German, non-academic background, the country faces an unprecedented demographic change that will make young people a rare good and education even more valuable than it is today.This paper explains the German discussion on tuition fees and the background to this discussion of lurking demographic change. It describes the challenges that demographic change poses for German higher education institutions (HEIs) and the strategies to deal with them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Higher Education Institutions are undergoing important changes involving the development of new roles and missions, with implications for their structure. Governments and institutions are implementing strategies to ensure the proper performance of universities and several studies have investigated evaluation of universities through the development and use of indicator systems. In this paper, we review some of the systems applied to the OECD countries, with special attention to Spain. We demonstrate the difficulty involved in establishing classification criteria for existing indicators, on which there is currently no consensus. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The theories and approaches of steering/monitoring a process of change within education systems have evolved over the last 20 years or so as a result of many factors such as globalisation and decentralisation, a faster pace of change, increasing expectations and demands from various stakeholders (parents, employers, teacher unions, etc.) and the growing influence of OECD and of the EU in the field of education because of some more or less explicit standards and policy recommendations. All these evolutions contributed to increase the complexity of the education systems and of the instruments and procedures required to establish some coherence between the initiatives of a large number of more autonomous stakeholders. Our main objective here is to describe how the previous notions and concepts used in analysing the conditions for steering education systems have been gradually integrated within a larger paradigm: the 'governance of multi-level complex education systems'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes the determinants of the choice of location of international students. Building on the documented trends in international migration of students, we identify the various factors associated to the attraction of migrants as well as the costs of moving abroad. Using new data capturing the number of students from a large set of origin countries studying in a set of 13 OECD countries, we assess the importance of the various factors identified in the theory. We find support for a significant network effect in the migration of students, a result so far undocumented in the literature. We also find a significant role for cost factors such as housing prices and for attractiveness variables such as the reported quality of universities. In contrast, we do not find an important role for registration fees. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses the pooled mean group (PMG) estimator and a dataset restricted to OECD countries to examine the relationship between different levels of education, i.e. between education composition and growth. The PMG estimator allows a greater degree of parameter heterogeneity than the usual estimator procedures used in empirical growth studies by imposing common long run relationships across countries while allowing for heterogeneity in the short run responses and intercepts. Results point to a significant long-term relationship not only between higher education and growth but also between lower schooling levels and growth. This indicates that public spending on education in OECD countries should be spread across the different levels of education in a balanced way. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Increasing female educational attainment across OECD countries is making hypogamy a widespread phenomenon. This trend provides an opportunity to re-examine the effects of educational assortative mating on children's educational outcomes. This research explores the effects of hypergamy, homogamy, and hypogamy on gender differences in children's expectation of university graduation and actual college graduation. For the first purpose, logistic regression with country fixed-effects is applied to individual-level data from PISA 2015; a similar analysis is carried out for the second purpose with data from the European Social Survey. Three characteristics make us expect higher female advantage among children of hypogamous couples: higher probability of mothers being the main family breadwinner; higher probability of gender value conflict, eventually leading to family breakup and the father's absence; and the possibility that the father's occupation discourages sons from pursuing higher education. A systematic female advantage is indeed found among children of hypogamous couples in terms of expectation of college graduation and actual college graduation. Among the possible mechanisms behind this female advantage, only the father's and the mother's occupation could be explored with the data at hand, but none of them explain this advantage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this study is to outline a new approach to the comparative analysis of student finance systems based on social rights, an approach widely applied in other areas of social policy. It focuses on rights codified in national legislation and financed by central governments, and the collection of indicators measuring formal eligibility and entitlements using model family analyses techniques. We illustrate the usefulness of the approach by exploring the relationship between the generosity and the degree of low-income targeting of student support in 21 OECD countries. The results show that student support is less generous in countries that concentrate benefits on students from low-income families. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines the engagement of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) with the higher education sector. Detailed empirical case studies probe the ultimate failure to launch of the OECD's Assessment of Higher Education Learning Outcomes initiative, as well as the recent demise of the long-established Institutional Management in Higher Education programme and the development of a new initiative on the evaluation of higher education system performance. The analysis is informed by a theoretical framework drawn from the wider international organization literature, focusing on internal organizational dynamics and the manner in which international organizations seek to construct their external authority. A complex portrait of the OECD as a policy actor correspondingly emerges, focused on agenda-setting within the organization in terms which highlight the interplay of organizational, governmental and stakeholder interests. This is further suggestive of a broader research agenda exploring emerging international-level policy processes in higher education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We analyse the association between age at tertiary graduation and outcomes of the first phase of the working career in Italy by using a rich longitudinal dataset built merging EU-SILC survey data with individual administrative records on working careers. Labour market outcomes is observed at the entry and along the 10-year period from graduation. No large differences in weekly and annual earnings and worked weeks emerge across individuals who attained the degree at different ages, thus showing a negligible direct penalisation related to graduating not at typical age in Italy. In particular, no statistically significant associations emerge as concerns the link between age at graduation and total earnings obtained during the 10 years from graduation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study compares the literacy and numeracy proficiencies of higher education (HE) degree holders in 21 OECD countries based on primary analysis of the national data sets collected via the OECD’s Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC) 2012 study. The differences in the graduates’ average literacy and numeracy proficiencies amongst the OECD countries are substantial. Depending on the country, a smaller or greater proportion of a young highly educated age group does not have sufficient skills in literacy or numeracy to cope with many of the everyday tasks requiring the use of that skill. The PIAAC study challenges existing evaluation practices of the effectiveness of HE in fostering individual skills and puts into perspective the attempts to lift national average skill levels by increasing the HE sector’s intake. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the changing character and consequences of state authorities' evolving relationships with universities in the United States, Germany, and Norway-typical cases for different national worlds of higher education. It argues that across the three OECD countries, welfare states have strengthened market principles in university governance, yet shaped competition in different ways. This conceptualization of institutional changes makes two seemingly conflicting perspectives compatible: one diagnosing national convergence on academic capitalism and one arguing for lasting divergence across national political economic regimes. Upon proposing ideal-typical trajectories of market-making institutional liberalization, the article explores path-dependent movement toward varieties of academic capitalism in the three countries. The findings on the socio-economic effects of this transformation suggest the need to moderate expectations on the ability of reformed higher education systems to contain contemporary societies' centrifugal forces. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study I bring together two different literatures: the hierarchical education literature and the skill-biased growth literature. In an overlapping-generations model I introduce capital–skill complementarity into a hierarchical education system. I obtain results that differ qualitatively from previous studies, among which are the following: (i) At earlier stages of development, basically educated labor contributes to growth more than highly educated labor. The opposite occurs at later stages. (ii) Even when all individuals acquire higher education, a growth-enhancing policy subsidizes higher education. (iii) In a growth-enhancing policy, the share of public resources allocated to basic education declines as the economy grows. (iv) The enrollment rate evolves in an S-shaped pattern, as occurred in several OECD countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Academic research systems (ARS) play a fundamental role in post-industrial societies. Using the lenses of comparative political-economy, this article (1) explores correspondence between 16 OECD countries and 12 ARS indicators, and (2) examines the extent to which Esping-Andersen's welfare regime typology explains this correspondence. The non-parametric correspondence analysis is stable and 67.4% of the variance is explained by three dimensions: Academic Centrality, Research Workforce and Responsiveness to Market Forces. The first and most important dimension distinguishes social-democratic from liberal regimes. Findings point to interplays between welfare mix, productivism and the socialization of risks and ARS' centrality and responsiveness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article studies entrepreneurial education and its impact on job-skills matches for higher education graduates. Those who possess entrepreneurial skills are assumed to be more market aware and creative in their job search. They are also expected to foresee which job offers would and would not, match their skills. Using a large comparative survey (REFLEX-HEGESCO) to test this hypothesis, we show that higher levels of entrepreneurial skills (defined as scanning and search, association and connection, and evaluation and judgement) reduce the probability of over-education for university graduates in 18 OECD countries five years after graduation. Entrepreneurial education helps individuals to obtain better jobs, even if they search for wage employment and not for self-employment. Resorting to a multilevel regression, our results indicate a stronger need for training in entrepreneurial skills at higher education institutions on the one hand, and the introduction of policies that promote innovation at the micro and macro levels in countries' economy, on the other. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Structure and organization seems to be at the root of many of the questions raised about institutional behaviour; however, with respect to research on university capacity building, few studies have examined research organizational problems, particularly in developing countries. This study investigates academic reactions to the structure and organization of research at four leading Vietnamese universities. Through document analysis and semi-structured interviews with 55 participants, the study finds that the four case-study Vietnamese universities have accomplished a number of the more visible tasks of research management such as creating research and research management positions; deciding primary organizational units for research delivery; creating a research office; and creating research oversight committees. However, they seem to neglect the other less visible tasks of organizing and structuring research such as developing rules for research integrity; developing a mechanism for evaluating the quality of research outcomes; preparing researchers and research managers for the necessary skills and knowledge; and deciding vertical and horizontal decentralization. The study concludes that even though research has been formally structured and organized, the management of research has not yet been professionalized. The key problem in organizing and structuring research is the lack of an effective system for research behaviour formalization. A more effective system for better formalizing research behaviours should be developed so that Vietnamese universities can integrate more successfully into the global research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The number of PhDs produced each year has increased greatly in OECD and many other countries. Arguments that increased educational stocks can benefit national competitiveness, productivity growth, and welfare are used to support the increased supply of doctorate holders in higher education. At the same time it is also clear that a growing number of doctorate holders will need to find employment outside the Higher Education sector. However, it is less clear what processes drive the resulting choice of sector and occupation. Key questions here are to what extent push factors such as labor market conditions influence sector choice and what pull factors lie behind self-selection into sectors. This article shows that the doctorate holders' mobility toward other nonuniversity sectors are determined by individual specific characteristics and scientific field (pull factors) but may also be influenced by push factors such as the supply of PhDs and the number of new academic positions within their field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In our knowledge-driven era, multiple and mutual benefits accrue from transnational research linkages. The article identifies important directions in transnational research collaborations involving U.S. universities revealed by key dimensions of 369 projects profiled on a U.S. higher-education association's database. Project initiators, principal research fields, regional and country distributions, and the sources and amounts of funding for different types of transnational research activity are selected for analysis. The balanced total portfolio of reported current research projects by region suggests that U.S. university principal investigators increasingly recognize the value of collaborative knowledge generation in the Global South as well as in other OECD countries. The data also show concentrations in the distribution of transnational research projects by principal field of activity that could exacerbate intra-regional asymmetries. The multi-institutional data draw attention to the often unnoticed, but vital, role that higher-education institutions play in supporting transnational research endeavors that address issues of current and future global concern. The conclusion considers wider implications for higher-education involvement in transnational knowledge generation and calls for increased symmetry in collaborative research ventures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) is currently engaging in a worldwide feasibility study entitled International Assessment of Higher Education Learning Outcomes (AHELO). This feasibility study seeks to develop measures that would assess student learning outcomes that would be valid across different languages, cultures, and higher education institutions. Drawing on anticolonial perspectives, this article provides a critical policy analysis of the AHELO project. Based on a review of the AHELO texts, it presents two themes: (1) crisis and imperial logic in policy production and (2) Anglo-Eurocentrism as global designs and colonial relationships. It argues that, through AHELO, OECD is striving to construct a global space of equivalence for teaching and learning in higher education, and in so doing, perpetuates coloniality in global higher education. It concludes by noting some comparative observations between AHELO and Programme for International Student Achievement in terms of the increasing role of global knowledge for policy tools in educational policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Higher education is widely considered to be critical to sustain growth and to adapt to globalisation. As a consequence, OECD governments are considering reforms to address perceived shortcomings of existing higher education systems, while preserving or enhancing equality of access to higher education. This chapter shows how labour market conditions, policies and institutions affect private incentives to invest in higher education, as well as the ability of individuals to finance this investment and the supply characteristics of core educational services. It also assesses the relative importance of several reform options to affect the number of new tertiary education graduates across OECD countries, and, in this context, considers the trade-offs involved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the possible development of internationalization of higher education in Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries, analyzing how the main driving forces may influence the internationalization process, globalization and the changing role of nation-states, regional and international bodies, and multilateral frameworks and agreements. The analysis is carried out based on four future scenarios for higher education developed by the OECD. Implications of various scenarios are analyzed in terms of their broader meaning for the main functions of higher education and issues of access, quality, and equity. Consequently, the implications for internationalization are derived. A special focus is placed on the consequences of the various scenarios for cooperation and competition as major strategic categories in the internationalization process. Finally, some further questions are raised with respect to the internationalization mission of higher education institutions in a globalized world and how the concept of internationalization may evolve. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the relationship between economic and cultural globalization and high education in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation & Development (OECD) countries. It has been noted that economic and cultural globalization has been indicated in a new era in higher education. Due to the concentration in knowledge, it has been indicated that higher education was always been more internationally open than most sectors. On the other hand, higher education institutions are more important than ever as mediums for a wide range of cross-border relationships in global knowledge economies.

The article focuses on topics related to the contribution of higher education institutions to regional development in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation & Development (OECD) countries. It has been indicated that educational institutions are progressively expected to play an active and major role in the economic, social and cultural development of their regions. In addition, the extent to which higher education institutions are able to meet expectations in playing a major role depends on the characteristics of the institutions and the region in which they are located.