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This article contributes to the understanding of how different actors in the academic field perceive the challenges that Brexit poses for European higher education. Based on a narrative analysis of 28 interviews, this paper highlights how actors' narratives convene discursive elements stemming from competing discourses on cooperation and competition. In doing so, the exploratory study focuses on two countries, Portugal and Germany, which correspond to distinct cases regarding their performance in the European research and higher education landscape. The analysis highlights that there are national differences between the perceptions of Brexit and allows identifying commonalities in the narratives in both countries. In addition, we identify the presence of a pragmatic managerial attitude in response to Brexit. The three overarching narratives are the narrative of concerns, the narrative of hopes, and the narrative of beliefs. These narratives reflect the struggle of the cooperation and the competition discourses in ascribing meaning to Brexit. The competition discourse has assumed a dominant role in the perceptions of Brexit and cooperation is mainly fueled through the academics and their professional ethos.

Apart from teaching, research and service to society, since 2015 higher education systems and institutions in Europe have faced an additional expectation -- to respond to the largely unexpected yet nevertheless growing demand for higher education by refugees. This study explores system and organizational level responses to such environmental pressures in Germany and Flanders, both affluent systems, but different in terms of size, attractiveness as destination and the extent to which their languages are widely spoken. Relying primarily on document analysis and interviews, the study highlights three elements of policy dynamics: policy styles, main drivers, and extent of involvement of non-state actors. While, as expected, in both systems the dynamics were re-active, solution-driven, and with strong involvement of non-state actors, contrary to expectations both countries responded primarily in a bottom-up manner. The study provides a conceptual tool and a first empirical insight into this novel phenomenon.

The study provides an insight into student perspectives on quality in higher education, using Harvey and Green conceptualizations as the point of departure, and exploring the linkages between the views on quality, the developments of the Bologna Process and related national reforms, as well as students' motivation for and expectations from higher education. Using the data collected in a survey of the student population in several European countries, the study shows that students have a multifaceted perception of quality in higher education, very homogenous with regards to "quality as transformation/added value" perspective, but rather polarized with regards to "quality as value for money" perspective. Students seem to prefer perspectives that put them in the centre of the process, though not necessarily only as active participants and co-creators of the higher education experience, but potentially also as passive consumers. The results show some blurring of the boundaries between the more traditional Humboldtian and the consumerist views on higher education among students.

This article analyzes the organizational development of freier zusammenschluss von studentInnenschaften (fzs), the national union of students in Germany from its foundation until 2010. It situates it within the variety of student organizations acting on behalf of students within the multi-level system of higher education governance in Germany. Starting out as a rather small, ideologically driven and a more network-oriented association fzs developed into a national-level umbrella organization with a more professional working structure. This institutionalization and professionalization--especially during the 2000s--can be explained by several important developments in the domestic environment in which fzs is embedded. The current diversification in German higher education governance, leading to the loss of influence of the federal level and growing diversity between the Bundesländer, together with increasing influence of commodification in the context of the Bologna Process, coincide with the decrease of impact and members of fzs after 2005.

Police like other public organizations increasingly use social media for external communication. Due to their bureaucratic organization social media poses a communication challenge for them. This study analyses the content of tweets by German police using a three-category framework. Machine-learning based classification tasks are coupled with multilevel modelling to analyse all tweets distributed in 2019. The study demonstrates that police largely use Twitter to distribute information unidirectionally focusing on core tasks, while information gathering, and public relations only play a subordinate role. There is variation between accounts. However, the model only explains parts of it, thus inviting for follow-up research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

German universities have traditionally been characterized as homogenous. However, recent policies such as the excellence initiative were supposed to introduce differentiation and incentivize universities to develop more specific missions. This study analyzes the mission statements of German universities using a quantitative content analysis. It focuses on the question, whether the mission statements of German universities can be clustered in different groups and if so, whether the membership in one of these groups correlates with a university's success in one of the initiatives or other organizational characteristics. The results show that German universities today have somewhat differentiated mission statements focusing either on research or education. Additionally, half of the universities created significantly longer mission statements with more diverse profiles. However, the characteristics of a university's mission statement are found not to be related to the university's success in the excellence initiative, the Competition for Teaching Excellence or the type of institution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Modern governments are increasingly faced with problems of policy coordination. However, coordination does not come naturally to organizations as it demands overcoming institutionalized working modes. Thus, countries have to find ways to tackle these problems to ensure efficient provision of public services. This contribution focuses on a specific and complex case, namely policy coordination for higher education policy in federal systems. The main research interest is to analyse the way in which coordination bodies responsible for higher education policy in two federal countries, Canada and Germany, organize their activities. Through this the study contributes to the understanding of the relevance of policy coordination in multi-level and multi-actor policy-making environments as well as the particular institutions that are dedicated to this task. Both coordination bodies are found to have many commonalities. However, the persisting differences, which can be traced to constitutional surroundings, also stress the importance of local conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]