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Due to significant government cuts to Higher Education funding in Southern European systems, their already underfunded universities were forced to increasingly compete for students as sources of additional revenue. Concurrently, families and students that continued to afford participation in Higher Education became more selective when choosing a university, realising the riskier investment that Higher Education participation had become. Through a competing destinations model and relying on all Italian private and public universities, this study finds that the competition forces characterising universities' attractiveness over the last decade have changed since the financial crisis of 2008. In a context of lower demand for Higher Education, the competition for students grew and universities in close proximity were better prepared to face the new challenges, leading to the growth of Higher Education clusters.

In this study, we analyse the relationship between competition and programmatic diversification in 75 Italian universities from the academic years of 2003/2004 to 2011/2012. Results show that local competition, rather than national competition, influences programmatic diversification. The relationship between local competition and programmatic diversification is found to be quadratic such that when competition increases, diversification decreases and specialisation increases, and both relationships are reversed after a certain threshold. We argue that under moderate levels of competition, universities tend to respond to local competition for students by differentiating their programmatic offerings from their competitors. However, when the level of competition is minimum or extreme, universities tend to follow an isomorphic strategy. After the reduction in student demand and the reform of the higher education system in 2008/2009, the relationship was no longer curvilinear because universities operating in extremely competitive environments began to adopt more risk-taking behaviour by engaging in diversification strategies.

The literature suggests that academic researchers with dual-appointment contracts, i.e. those employed concurrently by a university and an organization outside academia, have the potential to be more engaged in research collaborations with non-academic partners than colleagues contractually linked to a university only. Our results suggest that this relationship is not simple. Based on a sample of 7773 academic researchers in Europe, our findings show that the relationship between dual appointments and research collaborations is negative when the appointment involves an organization in the private sector and positive when the dual appointment is with an organization in the public sector. Our results also highlight that the profiles of academic researchers in dual appointments differ from those of academics mostly involved in research collaborations with non-academic organizations. The main differences relate to the academic researchers' educational paths, international mobility experiences and contractual status. The implications of these findings for research collaborations between the academic and non-academic sectors are discussed.

Research agenda setting is a critical dimension in the creation of knowledge since it represents the starting point of a process that embeds individual researchers' (and the communities that they identify themselves with) interest for shedding light on topical unknowns, intrinsic and extrinsic factors underpinning that motivation, and the ambition and scope of what a research endeavor can bring. This article aims to better understand the setting of individual research agendas in the field of higher education. It does so by means of a recently developed framework on research agenda setting that uses cluster analysis and linear modeling. The findings identify two main clusters defining individual research agenda setting--cohesive and trailblazing--each with a different set of determining characteristics. Further analysis by cross-validation through means of sub-sampling shows that these clusters are consistent for both new and established researchers, and for frequent and "part-time" contributors to the field of higher education. Implications for the field of higher education research are discussed, including the relevance that each research agendas cluster has for the advancement of knowledge in the field.

This article explores how the past mobilities of academics affect their current research output (and its multidisciplinarity). Five types of mobility are used simultaneously in the analysis. Field mobility and transnational educational mobility are associated with academics' educational path, whereas transnational job mobility, intra-sectoral job mobility and inter-sectoral job mobility refer to their career path. The analysis is based on a representative sample of academics based in Hong Kong and Macau. Results show that intra-sectoral job mobility (up to a threshold) and transnational job mobility positively affect research output and its multidisciplinarity, whereas inter-sectoral job mobility, field mobility and transnational educational mobility exert slight or no effect. Nested analyses of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) and non-STEM academics as well as experienced and junior academics offer further insight into the roles of these mobilities. Impacts of mobile experience were stronger among junior than senior academics, and in STEM fields than non-STEM fields. The article discusses these findings along with the significance of considering mobilities rather than mobility when analysing academic trajectories and the determinants of academic research production.

This study explores the association between PhD students' self-perception of skills and their career plans, which are analytically transformed into three non-academic sectors in relation to the academic sector (which serves as the baseline). Drawing on a representative sample of PhD students at a globally oriented research university in Asia (the University of Hong Kong), and using factor analysis, cluster analysis, and regressions, the study finds that self-perception of skills and career plans of PhD students are associated. These findings show that students with a strong perception of managerial skills are more inclined to consider career paths outside academia upon graduation. The study also finds that student perceptions of having strong managerial skills are more conducive for considering a career outside academia than having a strong aggregate self-perception in a broad set of skills. Further differences in the association between self-perception of skills and career plans are found for STEM and non-STEM PhD students. The initial motivation to earn a PhD remains strong throughout doctoral study programs and strongly predicts goal-associated career choices upon graduation. Finally, this study discusses the implications of these findings and makes policy recommendations.

Research productivity is a common topic in the literature, but peer reviewing for journals has received less attention, although it is a key activity of academic research. We help to fill this knowledge gap by assessing the determinants of peer review engagement and quality in scientific journals. We do so by analysing the combined information from a survey of academics working in different parts of the world and various fields of science, along with their publication and peer review information gathered from Scopus and Publons/Web of Science. We find that age, gender, and some dimensions of academics' strategic research agendas are important predictors of peer review engagement. We also find that academic inbreeding along the educational path has a negative association with the quality of peer-review activities. However, we find no statistically significant results concerning academic inbreeding related to the professional trajectory and peer review engagement and quality. Equally importantly, our results suggest that although the activities of publishing and peer reviewing are closely associated, peer review tends to be ancillary to publishing, rather than the other way around. Furthermore, the greater the perceived availability of resources, including research funding throughout an academic's career, the greater the focus is on publishing and the less the focus is on peer reviewing. These findings are discussed in relation to the current valuation of publication versus peer reviewing in terms of scientific and academic career recognition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Researchers have shown that the pursuit of doctoral studies is often related to the desire to become an academic, despite the constrained academic labour markets and changing (or deteriorating, as some have argued) academic working conditions (AWC) worldwide. In this study, we assessed the extent to which Chinese PhD students were aware of the changes taking place in the academic profession and, if so, whether this awareness influenced their career choices. We conducted a narrative inquiry involving 29 mainland Chinese PhD students and graduates in mainland China, Hong Kong and Macau to elicit their perceptions of AWC in their main academic labour market in mainland China and how these perceptions may have informed their career intentions. We found that perceptions of unfavourable AWC tended to dissuade the PhD students from pursuing a career in academia, but not always in the same way. This finding led us to conceptually identify four decision-making types based on the PhD students' motivations for achievement and desire for autonomy: the materialist, academic striver, undecided and comfort seeker. We found that all of the PhD students were primarily concerned about the ruthless tenure-track system and excessive competition, especially the comfort seekers (i.e. with high and low motivations for autonomy and achievement, respectively). Most of the PhD students also perceived guanxi, hierarchical academic communities, the segmented academic labour market and low remuneration as major drawbacks for seeking an academic career, particularly the materialists (i.e. with high and low motivations for achievement and autonomy, respectively). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article builds on the evolving relationship between science and society, focusing on the increasing emphasis on public participation in science decision-making processes. Public participation in science is often regarded as an embodiment of democratic principles that grant citizens the opportunity to engage with and influence scientific and technological developments. However, deficit models of science communication in participatory governance may be turning into democratic deficits. This article critically examines the deficit model of science communication, highlighting its potential democratic deficit. Drawing on empirical evidence from two case studies in a rural, socio-economically underdeveloped region in Portugal, the authors analyse the dynamics between agency and structure in hierarchical decision-making structures and power relations. We recommend policy implications to enhance the democratic quality of participatory science governance processes, based on convergence of initiatives, transparency, and new prospects for science communication. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on the effects of PhD funding on research performance both during the degree and throughout researchers' careers as measured through publications and citations. This analysis draws from a representative sample of researchers holding a doctorate based in Portugal and finds that those funded by grants during the PhD perform better than the self-funded ones. It also finds that different PhD funding sources produce different outcomes. PhD grants positively affect research performance during the PhD and throughout the career, when compared with research project grants. We argue that the latter funding scheme has more limited effects because of the constraints typical of early stage researchers involved in research project dynamics.

In a globalized world, universities face challenges adapting to changing environmental pressures and expectations of legitimacy. Studies on the topic have tended to focus on universities in North America and Europe, while Chinese universities have received less attention, perhaps due to their status as latecomers to global higher education. Based on institutional theory and resource dependence theory, this study examines the development process of two schools with different characteristics in a prestigious public Chinese university. Based on document and interview analyses, the findings indicate that both schools advocate internationalization as a development strategy but for different reasons. In response to the changing environment, one school continues to conform to the institutional environment; meanwhile, the other is competing in the task environment while also adhering to the university's and the state's norms, beliefs, demands and expectations. Based on the analysis, this article recommends that Chinese policymakers allow proactive schools willing to further their positioning in national and global higher education systems to have more autonomy and leeway in developing themselves.

The international mobility of faculty is increasing worldwide. Although studies have considered the experiences of academics abroad, less is known about faculty-exchange programs with policy objectives. This study helps to fill this gap by analyzing a nationwide structured faculty exchange program established by Carnegie Mellon University and Portuguese universities to bring change to Portuguese higher education. The findings are based on interviews with Portuguese program participants, whose motivation to participate and experiences with the program, in addition to the influence of their experience abroad on their home institution, were explored. We find that, although the alignment of individual motivations with institutional interests is important to such programs, the complex transposition of individual experiences to the institutional level may be impeded by cultural resistance as well as resource and organizational constraints. Our exploration of the features that determine the success or failure of these experiences provides insights for policymakers seeking to implement faculty-mobility programs in the future.

This study analyses the university choices of male and female students in Italy over the 2003-2012 period and for two sub-periods before (2003-2008) and after (2009-2012) the 2008 financial crisis. The analysis is guided by human capital, signalling and preference theories and implemented through a competing destinations model that controls for the socio-economic features of both the region of origin and destination. The findings show that in the post-crisis period, males became more career-oriented in their university choices due to increasingly constrained and competitive labour markets. The constrained post-crisis labour markets led females to focus more on the educational experience than on future employability prospects. Our results suggest that the financial crisis maintained or even widened gendered social roles as they relate to university choices; specifically, males assumed an even greater career-centred family role, whereas females adopted more adaptive lifestyles that potentially place them at a disadvantage in the labour market and in society in years to come.

This article addresses academics who innovate in higher education and their characteristics. We undertake a qualitative case study of six individuals who implemented disruptive and transformative pedagogical approaches and curricular practices in their departments and/or at their institutions. Our findings point to six common characteristics--motivation to change institutionalized practices, interest in change, experience in the field, multi-embeddedness, authority to act, and the strategic use of social networks--which seem to play a role at individual levels in driving these disruptive and transformative approaches. While acknowledging studies in higher education that address innovation as a response to exogenous influences, this study highlights the role of individuals with certain characteristics in driving innovation and processes of endogenous change in higher education institutions. These findings are also relevant for higher education practitioners in their desire to foster innovative initiatives in institutional settings.

Amidst the intensified discourse surrounding universities’ societal impact, social innovation and entrepreneurship (SIE) has emerged as a way to refocus universities’ engagement in sustainable development, particularly through their core mission of teaching and learning. Growing interest in SIE education over the decades has led to a proliferation of courses and programs offered in various disciplines by universities worldwide. Nevertheless, scholarly research unpacking the SIE educational processes remains scant and lacks multidisciplinary perspectives. Educators of SIE continue to face challenges in designing curricula and adopting appropriate teaching approaches. This study fills this gap by offering ample empirical evidence based on a documentary analysis of 53 syllabi from 43 distinctive courses accompanied by interviews with the academics responsible for the design of these courses across all eight publicly funded universities in Hong Kong. The analysis identifies multiple patterns within two major themes: the changing scope and positioning of SIE education and the varying orientations of SIE curricula. The findings provide valuable insights and identify areas for further exploration for the design of impactful SIE learning experiences for students. Furthermore, by situating the examination of SIE teaching and learning within the lens of curriculum theory, this study establishes a foundation for future research to undertake systematic and rigorous comparative analyses of curricula in diverse contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing on interviews with nine PhD students and twelve PhD graduates from a research university in Taiwan, this paper explores students' motivational profiles for pursuing a PhD at a time when that degree is increasingly decoupled from academic employment. Using self‐determination theory as a conceptual lens, the paper identifies common enrolment motivations in the PhD crisis era. Amidst the doctoral enrolment crisis in Taiwan, where the traditional employment path for PhD graduates (i.e., academia) is more of a mirage than a reality, the motivations of students to pursue a PhD do not differ much from those found in the literature concerning the era of PhD expansion. Two typical motivational profiles are predominant, one dominated by the accumulation of career advantages and the other by the search for personal growth. The findings show that the first profile tends to be on the minds of most students. The second profile tends to be adopted by those who have few career concerns or those who have a greater need for self‐improvement. We also find that these motivations have unique nuances, meanings and consequences for universities and doctoral education in the PhD crisis era. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, we explore the identity development of PhD graduates transitioning into non‐researcher roles. Through the conceptual lens of identity‐trajectory theory and based on interviews with 26 PhD graduates from three leading research universities in Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan, we analyse their identity‐trajectory development after their transition to non‐research employment. The findings show that PhD graduates develop their identity trajectories based on their existing sense of researcher‐self through a variety of practices that involve intellectual, networking and institutional dimensions. Individual agency plays a key role in overcoming structural constraints in the workplace, yet its level varies according to one's willingness to pursue a non‐research career. The findings highlight the fluidity in identity development and the role of the researcher‐self as a positive legacy of doctoral training, including for PhD graduates taking non‐researcher roles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Phenomenon: China hosts a large number of international medical students from low-income countries, and some fail examinations in the early stage of the Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery (MBBS) program. Little is known about how failing international medical students cope to recover their academic performance. It would be beneficial to investigate the coping strategies they use to help them recover their academic performance and progress. Approach: Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 21 international medical students at two universities in China from September 2020 to January 2021. These students had passed make-up exams or re-sits and progressed academically. A thematic analysis approach was used to identify major themes in the interview data. Findings: After failing initial exams or re-sits, students were found to adopt seven coping strategies to help them pass future examinations and recover their academic performance: (i) increased help-seeking behaviors, (ii) improved learning motivation and attitudes, (iii) improved learning strategies, (iv) improved exam preparation, (v) utilization of library resources, (vi) enhanced time management, and (vii) enhanced English language skills. Of the seven strategies, seeking help from friends, peers, seniors, and teachers was the strategy reported most frequently. Insights: The results of this study provide insights into the coping strategies that international undergraduate medical students adopt to recover from poor academic performance in Chinese universities. Host institutions should recognize the resilience and agency of such students to make positive changes. Furthermore, institutional efforts should be made to develop contextualized intervention plans that stimulate students' learning motivation and encourage them to adopt self-help strategies by incorporating useful resources (e.g., help from peers, seniors, and teachers). Enrollment should integrate specific English language proficiency criteria, and interviews and entrance exams should be conducted. For some failing students, it may be necessary to provide academic remediation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study analyzes the impact that publishing during the period of PhD study has on researchers' future knowledge production, impact, and co-authorship. The analysis is based on a representative sample of PhDs from all fields of science working in Portugal. For each researcher in the dataset, we compiled a lifetime publication record and respective meta-data retrieved from Thomson Reuters Web of Science. Our results extend the previous literature by showing that those who publish during their PhD have greater research production and productivity, and greater numbers of yearly citations and citations throughout their career compared to those who did not publish during their PhD. Moreover, it is found that those who publish during their PhD are more adept to publish single-authored publications and engage in publications with peers based abroad, thus suggesting both higher levels of scientific autonomy and international collaboration dynamics.

The academic profession contributes to shaping the capacity and identity of higher education systems. In East and Southeast Asia, there is a need for further discussion on the regional identity characteristics of the academic profession to account for its multiple origins and national and international dimensions. Data from two large-scale comparative surveys and secondary sources are used to investigate the role of international mobility in the formation and development of East and Southeast Asian academics in science, technology, engineering and mathematics fields. Based on Kim and Locke's [2010. "Transnational Academic Mobility and the Academic Profession." In "Higher Education and Society: A Research Report". London: CHERI, Open University] framework, patterns of academic mobility are examined in relation to the formation and development of higher education systems. The analysis shows mixed trends in the international flow of academics and the formation of the region's academic profession in relation to more or less independent or colonial historical backgrounds. Recent globalisation and regionalisation initiatives seem likely to transform the heterogeneous identities of the region's academic profession.

Studies of higher education by scholars based in Asia have been growing in volume, following worldwide trends. To a large extent, this growth has been driven by East Asian countries, but little is known about the characteristics of the contribution of these countries. This study analyses their overall and specific contribution. The paper concludes that systemic development and its internationalization, have different impacts on trends towards international publication of higher education research and on the collaborative networks nurtured and developed in each East Asian country. The main finding is that these countries present different realities in terms of engagement in internationally focused higher education literature among their national research communities. Yet, each country has made a wide-ranging contribution to international higher education research literature over time; each has a potentially decisive role in the further integration and development of higher education research in Asia over the coming years; and also, possibly, in the development of a regional higher education system.

Research on the career trajectories of doctoral recipients often assumes that all PhD students begin in roughly the same starting position. Consequently, the impact of pre-programme experiences remains understudied. This qualitative study draws on 59 interviews with PhD students studying in mainland China and Hong Kong to explore the influence of learning experiences during the master's degree programme on planned PhD career trajectories. Using identity-trajectory theory, we find that students with a master's degree had greater research expertise, a more prominent research profile, more established academic networks, and greater familiarity with the requirements of the academic profession and academic job market. This enabled them to adapt to institutional expectations and have a better-informed motivation for pursuing a PhD to become an academic. Based on these findings, we argue that having a master's degree gives PhD students a competitive advantage over peers without master's degrees. Our findings have implications for the importance of research training in master's education and the relevance of master's programmes for PhD admission policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The democratization of higher education through strategically driven science policies and higher education reforms is documented in this paper. These represent complementary policy actions oriented towards strengthening social, cultural and economic dimensions that allow higher education institutions (HEIs) to grow and to train graduates able to adapt to increasingly uncertain job markets. Drawing from the main achievements in Portugal during the period 2006-2010, our central argument focuses on the need to open higher education to all as a means to sustain a strong and specialized knowledge base. The results are related to the role of HEIs in fostering socially robust knowledge and supplying talented people and researchers to society in globalized socio-economic contexts.

This article focuses on the understudied role of research groups contributing to develop the knowledge base of developing universities in regions lagging behind in human, financial and scientific resources. We analyse the evolution of a research group that, in less than 10 years, achieved worldwide recognition in the field of microelectronics, with an impact on both engineering research and teaching activities at the University of Macau. Our analysis concludes that voluntarism and loose organizational structures from the start stimulate the development of solid scientific agendas and institutional identity, and that counter-intuitive policies, including academic inbreeding, may also be needed and unavoidable in this effort. The use of these counter-intuitive policies and their effects, however, can be mitigated by transforming education to highlight high levels of internationalization and quality standards with measurable outcomes. This requires the committed involvement of research group leaders in both research and education. Lastly, another key component of university development may lie in hiring and giving freedom to young promising scholars with the will and drive to lead and act.

This study analyzes the impact of intra-sectoral mobility of academics on research productivity and R&D information exchange dynamics in Japan. The analysis shows intra-sectoral mobility impacting positively both research productivity and information exchange dynamics, but that this effect--except for information exchange with peers based abroad--has a threshold. This result highlights the importance of academic job mobility but also alerts for cases of "overloads of mobility," leading us to argue for some degree of stability in academic careers, supported by policies fostering temporary international mobility spells. We also find that the role of foreign academics in the Japanese higher education is one of national and international gatekeepers being this role shaped by where the doctorate was obtained (Japan vs abroad). Japanese academics that have performed the doctorate abroad are also key international gatekeepers.

This study explores higher education research in Asia. Drawing on scientometrics, the mapping of science and social network analysis, this paper examines the publications of 38 specialised journals on higher education over the past three decades. The findings indicate a growing number of higher education research publications but the proportion of Asian publications in relation to the total world publications in higher education research remains stationary. The higher education research community in Asia is heavily concentrated in a few countries and universities, resting on a relatively small number of core scholars who publish research in the international specialised higher education journals. In response to increasing challenges in Asian higher education systems, the paper suggests that the higher education research community in Asia needs to be expanded and include more regional and international collaborations.