Education

Danagul Yembergenova In 2018, Kazakhstan granted public universities greater institutional autonomy, encouraging them to become more entrepreneurial, internationally competitive, and responsive to societal and economic needs. But autonomy reforms do more than change governance arrangements; they reshape how universities understand themselves. Rather than asking whether universities have become more autonomous, our recent research asks a […]

Lise Moawad The rise of university alliances has become a defining feature of the contemporary European higher education landscape. While transnational partnerships that have emerged through programs such as the European Universities Initiative (Gunn 2020) have received much attention, local university alliances, especially those based in capital cities, remain relatively understudied. These local configurations are […]

Kateryna Suprun In the increasingly turbulent economic environment facing many European higher education institutions (HEIs) (Pruvot et al., 2025), performance-based funding (PBF) remains a popular instrument for allocating at least part of core public funding (European Commission, 2023). Traditionally, PBF involves governments rewarding HEIs for meeting specific objectives – an approach often assumed to improve […]

Zahra Jafarova In the shifting landscape of European higher education, neoliberal reforms used to be celebrated as tools for financial efficiency and institutional autonomy. But how does such a market-oriented framework function when it is instrumentalized by a regime drifting away from democracy towards authoritarianism? In Hungary, the transformation of the university system stands out […]

Alina Felder-Stindt The European Union’s ambition to become a knowledge-based economy has transformed the role of higher education institutions (HEIs). My new book, The Territorial Dimension of EU Knowledge Policies: Higher Education Institutions for Europe (Routledge, 2025), explores how universities are not only shaped by European integration but also actively shape it, particularly through their […]

The 2025 edition the European Consortium for Political Research (ECPR) General Conference at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki in Greece, 26-29 August. These were four intense days of thousands of participants exploring most pressing political issues of our times over a range of featured roundtables and hundreds of panels. The conference section of the ECPR […]

Alina Felder-Stindt and Martina Vukasovic In the ever-evolving landscape of European higher education, the European Universities Initiative (EUI) stands out as a flagship project that emerged with surprising speed and ambition. But how does such a major initiative take shape in an area where the European Union (EU) has only limited formal competence and an […]

Marina Cino Pagliarello Diplomacy is under pressure – from climate change and trade inequalities to military conflicts on multiple fronts. Russia’s war in Ukraine continues to test the continent’s democratic resolve. The crisis in the Middle East underscores the limits of formal diplomacy. Across regions, authoritarianism is on the rise, and even established democracies are […]

Manfred Stock, Alexander Mitterle and David P. Baker What do universities teach us? A common trope in public discourse today is that the university serves as an ideological hub: a place that infuses the minds of the new generations with ideas that threaten contemporary worldviews. In such discussions, the sweeping impact higher education has on […]

Cecilia Ivardi and Linda Wanklin In Political Economy, we have historically examined the policies through which countries acquire skills as a national effort. Traditionally, skill provision has been considered a matter occurring within well-defined national borders. Scholars have investigated how economic elites secure the necessary skills and workforce for industries that foster economic growth (see […]