Project description
Studying education systems to overcome modern challenges
Sometimes it seems that higher education is in crisis mode. Its two opposite sides – the humanistic traditions of older university governance and the changes brought by neo-liberal reforms in recent years – are creating an environment that finds it difficult to adapt to society’s needs. In addition to those issues, the transition to digital education caused further divisions during the pandemic. The EU-funded HESPRI project aims to overcome the problems that modern universities face and improve policymaking regarding them. To do this, the research team will study and compare higher education systems worldwide and their different approaches to this issue. Finally, they will be able to offer policymakers educated recommendations.
Objective
The current world of higher education (HE) has been shaped by two forces: the humanistic traditions of university governance and the neo-liberal reforms of the past thirty years. With its successes and discontents, this hybrid system faces major crises that affect its ability to respond to the needs of society: the tension between traditional and neo-liberal academic values; the biased evaluation and assessment of quality in higher education; the ineffectiveness determined by the distorted measurements of scientific achievements and other factors; the recent digital transformations of the universities facing the pandemic. To face these challenges, HESPRI addresses innovative strategies to strengthen public policies and improve the competitiveness of the HE sector. Specific objectives and originalities, and a well-designed R&I work plan (4 scientific WPs and 2 support WPs) are proposed for achieving this main goal: comparing a range of national HE systems worldwide as a function of cultural practices, for revealing tensions between various categories of values, shaped by global tendencies; exploring, defining and comparing quality in HE in different contexts, in order to provide innovative and advanced methodology; bringing the collective voice of science into the policymaking process in HE, by looking at how disciplinary and national differences affect governance; analysing technology-enhanced higher education environments, beyond the state of the art, around three pillars - digitalisation, metaverse and open science, on specific emerging research topics. Relying on a world-class and culturally diverse consortium, HESPRI aims to provide evidence-based recommendations for governments, policymakers and universities, to adjust various components in trend with recent provocations. The project proposal incorporates global digitalisation trends, and is tightly connected with world-wide and European strategies and programmes, such as the UN global policies of SDGs.
Fields of science
Keywords
Programme(s)
- HORIZON.1.2 - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) Main Programme
Funding Scheme
HORIZON-TMA-MSCA-SE - HORIZON TMA MSCA Staff ExchangesCoordinator
700506 Iasi
Romania