39th EAIR Forum Porto 2017
FORUM THEME
Under pressure?
Higher education institutions coping with multiple challenges
A core position in the knowledge economy policies has been ascribed to higher education. This has further enhanced the complexity of the environment within which higher education institutions operate. Systems and institutions deal with a wide range of pressures stemming from the State, the corporate world, the society at large and political interests. Additionally there are those arising from the constituencies of higher education institutions (academics, students and non-academics). Higher education institutions as ‘autonomous agents’ are subject to demands underlining the need for accountability and awareness to local, regional, national and supranational agendas. Institutions are expected to cope with these pressures by developing strategies involving quality management, performance and assessment, innovation, while reconfiguring the relationships between research, teaching and learning.
Within this landscape, the core business of higher education institutions is being reshaped and challenging institutions’ internal life to strategically respond to the reconfiguration of education, research and service to society. At the core of how institutions are responding to multiple challenges triggered by their ever-changing environment, topics such as governance and management, strategies and strategizing, budget control, performance and assessment, quality management, local and regional innovation come to the fore front.
The 2017 EAIR Forum, is expected to address these topics by convening approaches to the understanding of the interactions between policy drivers and institutional practices. The Forum welcomes contributions based on research in the field of higher education, institutional research and case studies on that theme.
More info: http://www.eairweb.org/forum2017/