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January 2017 - January 2020
January 2015 - present
January 2011 - present
Publications
Publications (142)
In my comment to Michael Ochsner's essay on societal impact of research, I argue that Michael is right to point to the complexity of societal impact and to the pitfalls of overly simple measurement frameworks as the one introduced in the UK's Research Assessment Framework. I also convey with him that the lack of such framework does not mean that so...
In evaluative bibliometrics and higher education studies, one is frequently confronted with the task of comparing institutions with similar institutions. In this Letter to the Editor, a simple approach is discussed which applies ChatGPT. Although the approach seems to produce promising results (tested with an example at the level of research instit...
The goal of this paper is to contribute toward bridging the gap between policy design and implementation by focusing on domains, such as education, healthcare and community services , where policy implementation is largely left to the autonomous decision of public service providers, which are strategic actors themselves. More specifically, we sugge...
Using a dataset of higher education institutional alliances within the framework of the European University initiative (EUi), we test empirically whether the policy-defined goal of a relative balance between excellence and inclusiveness within the scheme has been achieved. Specifically, we provide a descriptive and analytical account of the diversi...
This paper compares two measures of organizational size of Higher Education Institutions widely used in the literature: the number of Academic Personnel (AP) measured according to definitions from international education statistics, and the Scientific Talent Pool (STP), i.e. the number of unique authors affiliated to the HEI as derived from the Sco...
Over the last decades, most EU countries have profoundly reshaped their public research funding systems by shifting from traditional institutional block-funding towards more project-based mechanisms. The main rationale underlying this evolution builds on the assumption that project funding would foster research performance through the introduction...
The European Tertiary Education Register (ETER) is the reference dataset on European Higher Education Institutions (HEIs). ETER provides data on nearly 3,500 HEIs in about 40 European countries, including descriptive information, geographical information, students and graduates (with various breakdowns), revenues and expenditures, personnel, and re...
Using a dataset of higher education institutional alliances within the framework of the European University initiative (EUi), we test empirically whether the policy-defined goal of a relative balance between excellence and inclusiveness within the scheme has been achieved. Specifically, we provide a descriptive and analytical account of the diversi...
This article examines how ideational complexity, i.e. the lasting presence of alternative policy frames in a policy domain, can be managed without leading to overt conflicts. By leveraging insights from the organisational literature, we suggest that, in most cases, alternative frames are kept apart within distinct policy instruments, while hybrid i...
This paper discusses empirical comparisons of higher education institutions across world regions. It argues that institutional data systems have the potential for complementing global comparisons promoted by rankings by providing sensible information on institutional size, budgets, staffing, enrolments and activity profiles. With this perspective i...
The differentiation of profiles of institutions over the past several decades emphasizes their relevance for higher education. Unlike in the United States, there is currently no broad classification of higher education institutions in Europe. Building on European Tertiary Education Register data, we propose a new comprehensive and cross-country cla...
Classifications are a basic tool for research, which allow summarizing the diversity of objects in a number of categories that fits the cognitive abilities of the human mind. Their relevance for higher education is emphasized by the differentiation of institutional profiles. Yet, unlike in the US, there is currently no classification of European Hi...
The aim of this study was to examine how institutional barriers arising from policy decisions influence the level of participation of third-party countries in European Framework Programs (EU-FPs). To achieve this, we contrasted the effect of EU funding restrictions following Switzerland’s 2014 reclassification as a “third country” in Horizon 2020,...
The funding environment of European Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) has evolved towards a “new funding climate” characterized by austerity and competition for resources. The outcome is a differentiated setting in terms of streams, allocation methods and country-specific policies. The goal of this paper is to investigate empirically the extent...
Research on EU-FP participation (and its determinants) has been largely focused on funded participations and tended to exclude non-successful HEIs; moreover, most studies have been cross-sectional, including previous participation to EU FP as a determinant of current participation. Our paper aims to complement these analyses by investigating change...
Understanding knowledge co-creation in key emerging areas of European research is critical for policy makers wishing to analyze impact and make strategic decisions. However, purely data-driven methods for characterising policy topics have limitations relating to the broad nature of such topics and the differences in language and topic structure bet...
WIEGO (Women in Informal Employment: Globalizing and Organizing) is a global research-policy network that seeks to improve the status of the working poor, especially women, in the informal economy. The members of this network are individual researchers, individual development practitioners, and organizations of informal workers, which total more th...
While the literature on firm mergers and acquisitions (M&A) is quite extensive, systematic approaches to analyze mergers in the public research sector are still scarce and focus only on the higher education sector. This article provides, for the first time, systematic empirical evidence on the extent and characteristics of M&A in public-sector rese...
Purpose
This paper relates the definition of data quality procedures for knowledge organizations such as Higher Education Institutions. The main purpose is to present the flexible approach developed for monitoring the data quality of the European Tertiary Education Register (ETER) database, illustrating its functioning and highlighting the main cha...
This article presents the conceptual and methodological design of a register of public-sector organizations, as well as a preliminary delineation of such organizations in Europe. Conceptual and methodological issues are discussed, as well as the potential usage of the register for interlining datasets and analysis. The significance of the register...
Alongside the introduction of research evaluation systems (Whitley and Gläser, 2007) and the restructuring of public-sector research (Paradeise et al., 2009), a major change in the governance of research systems has been the transformation in the allocation of public funding to per formers (Geuna, 2001). This transformation has been described as th...
The research policy (RP) arena has been transforming in recent years, turning into a policy mix encompassing the diversity of policy instruments embedded in, and following different policy rationales and aims. Its complexity defies attempts for complex comparative analysis and eventually, a better understanding of what kind of (mixes of) funding in...
The goal of this chapter is to provide some directions for a broader understanding of grant proposal writing as part of a socially and institutionally embedded communicative process between scientists and funding agencies. It involves a variety of (formal and informal, textual and oral) communicative exchanges and the production of a network of int...
In this paper, we present the evolution of Swiss Media and Communication Studies over the last decade by summarizing the main results from a project funded by the Swiss University Conference (2008-2017). We give an overall picture of the growth in the field (in terms of student numbers, resources and activities), look at diversity in terms of topic...
By using a comprehensive dataset of US and European universities, we demonstrate super-linear scaling between university revenues and their volume of publications and (field-normalized) citations. We show that this relationship holds both in the US and in Europe. In terms of resources, our data show that three characteristics differentiate the US s...
This paper aims to understand the mechanisms through which organizations, over time, manage competing logics within budgeting practices. We draw insights from new institutional studies in accountingto highlight the importance of practice-level negotiations for managing institutional conflicts, but we complement them with a focus on the organization...
Despite the recognition that society is composed by a web of interconnected fields, much of the research has focussed on the fields’ internal dynamics treated as silos, while the effect of cross-field linkages remains under-explored both theoretically and empirically. By drawing on the sociological literature on agency, we develop an analytical mod...
Understanding knowledge co-creation in key emerging areas of European research is a critical issue for policy makers in order to analyse impact and make strategic decisions. However, current methods for characterising and visualising the field have limitations concerning the changing nature of research, the differences in language and topic structu...
Recently, the need to contribute to the evaluation of the scientific, social, and political impact of Social Sciences and Humanities (SSH) research has become a demand of policy makers and society. The international scientific community has made significant advances that have transformed the impact of evaluation landscape. This article reviews the...
While ResearchGate has become the most popular academic social networking site in terms of regular users, not all institutions have joined and the scores it assigns to academics and institutions are controversial. This paper assesses the presence in ResearchGate of higher education institutions in Europe and the US in 2017, and the extent to which...
Performance-based research funding (PBRF), the allocation of institutional funding on the basis of ex post assessments of university research performance, has been implemented in a large number of EU Member States. However, the characteristics of this funding scheme differ widely. Apart from differences in the volume of funding, there are major var...
In this article, we propose a synthetic indicator for the performance orientation of public R&D funding at the country level that allows for quantitative comparisons across countries and over time, and we illustrate the methodology for its computation and validation. The indicator characterizes R&D funding from the state in terms of the extent the...
This chapter revisits the TRUE project from the perspective of the methodological choices made and, particularly, of the debate between qualitative and interpretive methodologies on the one hand, and quantitative and formalized methodologies on the other hand. By doing this, we highlight the deeper rationales of methodological choices, the practica...
Given the highly differentiated and nuanced analyses of change processes in university systems provided by the TRUE project, the chapter first reviews this evidence along a set of common dimensions concerning variation in organizational university configurations and their linkages to HE policies and related environmental pressures. This review unde...
This paper describes ongoing work in the KNOWMAK project, which aims to develop a webbased tool providing interactive visualisations and state-of-the-art indicators on knowledge cocreation in the European research area. One of the main novel developments in this work is the use of ontologies to act as a bridge between the data sources (research pro...
This chapter aims to provide empirical evidence on budgeting practices in European universities through a cross-country universities analysis. We investigate what is the diffusion of given processes, allocation criteria and what actors have more the influence on budgeting, to what extent are budgeting practices related to the level of competition f...
This chapter revisits the TRUE project from the perspective of the methodological choices made and, particularly, of the debate between qualitative and interpretive methodologies on the one hand, and quantitative and formalized methodologies on the other hand. By doing this, we highlight the deeper rationales of methodological choices, the practica...
The goal of our paper is to provide an account of the relationships between the inter-linkages with proximate fields and strategic action in organizational fields across periods of stability, contention and settlement. We move beyond the extant literature on external jolts by proposing that inter-field linkages are relevant to explain strategic act...
The goal of this chapter is to review the potential of institutional logics theory for the study of higher education. After providing a concise introduction to institutional logics, the chapter reviews the small number of studies in higher education that have adopted this approach. It is concluded that most uses of New Institutionalism in the field...
The paper analyses the extent to which RPBF allocation mechanisms are being implemented in Europe. To do so, this study builds on a novel set of data on project and organisational level funding developed for the European Commission, which identifies funding allocation mechanisms in each of the EU-28 Member States. This approach allows to compare th...
This paper presents an analysis of resource acquisition and profile development of institutional units within universities. We conceptualize resource acquisition as a two-level nested process, where units compete for external resources based on their credibility, but at the same time are granted faculty positions from the larger units (department)...
This paper investigates the growth over time of the size of higher education institutions (HEIs), as measured by the number of academic staff, and its association with HEI and country attributes. We analyze a sample of 837 HEIs from 18 countries derived from the European Tertiary Education Register (ETER) and from the European Micro Data dataset (E...
European governments increasingly employ competitive university funding to improve performance in higher education. The framework that is developed in this paper suggests a donor-specific trade-off between fostering best performing universities and increasing university efficiency when introducing competitive funding in the university sector. We te...
The aim of this paper is to analyze responses of public universities to the introduction of New Public Management (NPM) as the outcome of balancing between the managerial logics endorsed by NPM and the academic professional logics. Building on the institutional logics approach, we develop a framework concerning how universities will achieve complia...
The point of departure of this chapter is the statement by the editors of this volume on a previous occasion that universities are increasingly expected to play a crucial, multifaceted role in the development of modern society. The aim is to analyse the relationship between changing conceptions of knowledge, higher education reform policies and cha...
This paper aims to analyze patterns of participation of higher education institutions (HEIs) to European Framework Programs (EU-FP) and their association with HEI characteristics, country and geographical effects. We have analyzed a sample of 2235 HEIs in 30 countries in Europe, derived from the European Tertiary Education Register (ETER), which ha...
Institutional diversity—the variety of higher education institutions within a higher education system—has been a popular theme
in higher education (policy) research. Despite the large amount of work, key challenges to a better understanding of institutional
diversity have hardly been addressed. We argue that particularly the problems of conceptuali...
Organizational control and environmental influences on organizational behavior are central themes in
organization studies, yet little effort has been made to bring them together. In this paper we seek to
contribute to filling this gap by investigating and conceptualizing environmental influences on organizational
control. The paper examines pattern...
This paper analyzes the competition for skilled human resources between European higher education institutions (HEI) through a multi-level model predicting their ability to attract foreign researchers. Predictions of the model are tested on a dataset on internationalization of 601 HEIs in 8 European countries. We show that (1) the model is able to...
A key insight in the institutional logics approach is that social systems operate at multiple and nested levels coupled by mutual processes of framing and innovation. In our paper we propose an integrated analysis of the cross-level interactions that occur in the organizational responses to pluralism. Specifically, we focus on the coupling between...
The aim of this paper is to develop a model of organizational responses to pluralism derived from selective coupling. We predict that, in fields characterized by competing logics, the adoption of logic’s stipulations depends on their centrality with respect to both logics. Central stipulations to one logic and peripheral to the other one are adopte...
This article investigates the form of European universities to determine the extent to which they resemble the characteristics of complete organizations and whether the forms are associated with modernization policy pressure, national institutional frames and organizational characteristics. An original data set of twenty-six universities from eight...
This paper analyzes the competition for skilled human resources between European higher education institutions (HEI) through a multi-level model predicting their ability to attract foreign researchers. Predictions of the model are tested on a dataset on internationalization of 601 HEIs in 8 European countries. We show that (1) the model is able to...
The opening of national research programs has gained importance as a means for increasing international collaboration and
for improving the quality and efficiency of scientific research at the national, European, and international levels. The concept
of opening refers to the fact that actors who do not belong to a national research space can partic...
The aim of this paper is to empirically test whether interlinking patterns between higher education institutions (HEIs) conform to a document model, where links are motivated by webpage content, or a social relationship model, where they are markers of underlying social relationships between HEIs. To this aim, we analyzed a sample of approximately...
This article investigates the form of European universities to determine the extent to which they resemble the characteristics of complete organizations and whether the forms are associated with modernization policy pressure, national institutional frames and organizational characteristics. An original data set of twenty-six universities from eight...
The notion that higher education has become more international, and should become even more, has been repeatedly affirmed in the recent debate. However, studies on this issue have been limited to analyses at aggregate country level or to case studies of small samples of higher education institutions. The EUMIDA project provides an opportunity to fi...
One of the most significant European higher education reform initiatives of the last decade is the introduction of a European Qualification Framework (EQF) emphasising Learning Outcomes (LOs) in higher education. The EQF is offered as a reform to contribute to increased transparency and mobility, and also implies a certain degree of standardization...
The aim of this article is to contribute to the scholarly debate on differentiation processes in higher education, particularly in binary systems. We build on recent developments in institutional theory and organizational ecology on the nature of organizational forms, as well as on the mechanisms through which these forms impact characteristics of...
This paper analyzes competition for skilled human resources between European universities through a multi-level model of the ability of HEIs to attract foreign researchers, including both country-level and HEI-specific factors. Predictions of the model are tested by exploiting a newly-developed dataset providing data on internationalization of indi...
Budgeting—i.e. the decision on the level of expenditures and on the repartition of resources among organizational subunits—can be conceived as a critical organizational process, which is closely related to key choices concerning strategic priorities and to resources acquisition strategies. Overall, it is increasingly being recognized as one of the...
Consultable en ligne : http://www.forschungsinfo.de/STI2013/download/STI_2013_Proceedings.pdf
Extant indicators on research and higher education do not consider the complex relational structure in which universities
are embedded and that influences their performance on one side, and the impact of policies on the other. This article investigates
the overall pattern of universities’ relational arenas in a Regional environment by considering t...
The growth and diversification of higher education during the last decades have made it an institution of steadily growing importance.
The study of higher education is still a small and rather undeveloped research field compared to other comparable fields of social research, but the research effort is rapidly increasing. One expression of this inc...
Final report
The study “Investments in JOint and open R&D Programmes and analysis of their economic impact” (the JOREP study) has been launched by the Directorate General for Research and Innovation of the European Commission (Economic Analysis Unit) to quantify and analyse the coordination and opening-up of national public funding which constitute...