Jens Jungblut

• Doctor of Philosophy
• Professor (Associate) at University of Oslo

Academic freedom is widely accepted both as a fundamental value of present-day higher education and as a prerequisite for well-functioning democratic societies. Yet, in recent years, major concerns about the state of academic freedom in Europe have been raised by higher education stakeholders, including policymakers and members of the academic comm...

Today’s universities are under pressure from multiple directions. The massive growth in students and staff has led to, among others, a high competition between individual academics and universities for external funding. Studies highlight that the quest for external funding has led to a narrowing down of research topics in terms of breadth and scope...

In this article, we study the motivation and performance of researchers. More specifically, we investigate what motivates researchers across different research fields and countries and how this motivation influences their research performance. The basis for our study is a large-N survey of economists, cardiologists, and physicists in Denmark, Norwa...

Scholars may be diversely engaged in boundary-crossing work, either staying more confined in academic settings, or reaching out to the policy world. Despite growing theoretical attention, there is little empirical knowledge on the extent to which scholars indeed engage in boundary-crossing activities, and the conditions that foster or jeopardize th...

This concluding chapter summarizes the main findings of this volume on the politics of higher education policy. After presenting key results from each of the three contexts, we discuss the status-quo of the respective research communities including considerations of salient research themes and conceptual approaches in the study of higher education...

Higher education policy has become a more salient issue in modern states as universities are increasingly important for societal and economic development. This leads to an increased politicisation of this policy area. At the same time, there is a lack of comparative scholarship studying the politics of higher education policy on both sides of the A...

There has been ample reform activity regarding the governance of higher education in Europe since the late 1980s. The initial impetus behind these reforms has been linked to the introduction of concepts stemming from New Public Management (NPM) leading to somewhat similar reform rationales throughout Western Europe. At the same time, European count...

This chapter contributes to our understanding of the transformation sweeping the higher education sector in the last 50 years by examining how higher education policy has been framed and reframed since the 1970s in Western Europe. How policies are framed and reframed is important because it helps us make sense of higher education policy reforms aro...

Populist radical right parties (PRRPs) have become more mainstream, increasing their relevance in European politics. While a lot is already known about them, there are still gaps in our knowledge. This article addresses one such gap by studying Western European PRRPs’ positions on education policy. It focuses on the salience of education in electio...

Recruitment is one of the main strategic tools for universities, which aim to hire the best possible candidates for their academic positions. However, not every institution can hire whom they perceive as the best. Our paper investigates what are perceived to be the most pressing hindrances to attracting the best researchers. We focus on national an...

Police like other public organizations increasingly use social media for external communication. Due to their bureaucratic organization social media poses a communication challenge for them. This study analyses the content of tweets by German police using a three-category framework. Machine-learning based classification tasks are coupled with multi...

The consensus-seeking nature of Germany’s civic epistemology and largely absent structural incentives for advisory work of academics may imply an overall comparatively lower engagement. Yet, German political science stands in the tradition of a ‘watchdog’ of democracy, and the past decades bear witness of continued involvement in societal and polit...

Studies on academic recruitment processes have demonstrated that universities evaluate candidates for research positions using multiple criteria. However, most studies on preferences regarding evaluative criteria in recruitment processes focus on a single country, while cross-country studies are rare. Additionally, though studies have documented ho...

Due to an oversight by the Publisher during typesetting stage, there was an error in respect to the name of Siri B. Borlaug. The country “Norway” was mistakenly captured as part of the first name, hence the presentation “Norwary Siri B. Borlaug”. His name is now correctly presented here as well as in the original article.

Using a neo‐institutional framework, this study investigates how German police use Twitter for their communication. This is relevant, because the police increasingly use social media to bypass the media's gatekeeping function and attain increased agency in communication activities. However, little is known about their different communication strate...

Numerous universities throughout the world have established top-level advisory boards – informal bodies and councils that the institutional leadership may consult on issues perceived as important. Through a series of qualitative interviews with members of such entities as well as representatives of the institutions appointing them, the article shed...

For several decades, higher education systems have undergone continuous waves of reform, driven by a combination of concerns about the changing labour needs of the economy, competition within the global-knowledge economy, and nationally competitive positioning strategies to enhance the performance of higher education systems. Yet, despite far-rangi...

While the EHEA has achieved its goal to reduce structural barriers for student and staff mobility, the situation is different when it comes to the realization of the agreed upon promotion of basic values and principles. For example, in a number of EHEA countries the adherence of academic freedom has deteriorated since 2010. In addition, various stu...

The International Association of Universities (IAU) is the only inclusive global university association, its membership barriers are low, yet few universities are members despite considerable benefits. What determines membership in this long-standing international university alliance? Reviewing recent trends toward a more networked, stratified and...

In den letzten Jahren wurde in der deutschen Politikwissenschaft (und darüber hinaus) eine intensive Debatte über die gesellschaftliche und politische Relevanz der Disziplin geführt. Dabei blieb allerdings die faktische politikberatende Rolle mindestens genauso umstritten wie die normative Seite dieser Tätigkeit; und auch innerhalb der vergleichend...

This article contributes to the understanding of how different actors in the academic field perceive the challenges that Brexit poses for European higher education. Based on a narrative analysis of 28 interviews, this paper highlights how actors’ narratives convene discursive elements stemming from competing discourses on cooperation and competitio...

Apart from teaching, research and service to society, since 2015 higher education systems and institutions in Europe have faced an additional expectation – to respond to the largely unexpected yet nevertheless growing demand for higher education by refugees. This study explores system and organizational level responses to such environmental pressur...

Apart from teaching, research and service to society, since 2015 higher education systems and institutions in Europe have faced an additional expectation – to respond to the largely unexpected yet nevertheless growing demand for higher education by refugees. This study explores system and organizational level responses to such environmental pressur...

This article examines shifts in the structures of Ukrainian higher education and research based on historical institutionalism with a focus on the dynamics of change and stability during critical junctures. We show how critical political junctures influence higher education, how institutions of higher education and research have experienced convers...

This article examines shifts in the structures of Ukrainian higher education and research based on historical institutionalism with a focus on the dynamics of change and stability during critical junctures. We show how critical political junctures influence higher education, how institutions of higher education and research have experienced convers...

In this chapter, three conceptually distinct dimensions of EHEA governance are presented. One, the multi-level dimension concerning the distribution of authority across governance levels (e.g. European, regional and national). Two, the multi-actor dimension reflecting the involvement of non-state actors (e.g. stakeholder organizations) and the ackn...

Increasing reliance on market mechanisms in higher education is analysed both as one of the approaches to steering as well as in relation to the consequences of markets for quality and accessibility of higher education. This article goes beyond the normative considerations of market elements as inherently good or bad and the economic theory-guided...

The rising importance of higher education policy among contemporary states and societies and the apparent move towards knowledge economies has been linked to overarching global reform dynamics and trends that affect higher education policy processes. One of these trends has been labeled as ‘agentification’. Agentification refers to the process of u...

http://www.researchcghe.org/perch/resources/publications/he-and-brexit.pdf

http://www.researchcghe.org/perch/resources/publications/he-and-brexit.pdf

Modern governments are increasingly faced with problems of policy coordination. However, coordination does not come naturally to organizations as it demands overcoming institutionalized working modes. Thus, countries have to find ways to tackle these problems to ensure efficient provision of public services. This contribution focuses on a specific...

This thematic issue introduces the multifaceted nature of contemporary public policy—its multi-level, multi-actor, and multi-issue features—by using the case of higher education policies from around the world. To do so, this introduction first describes how higher education as a policy sector should be garnering far more attention from scholars int...

Party youth organisations fulfil two functions for their parties: They are a resource for future party leaders and they aggregate the interests of young people within the party. It is essential to understand how they fulfil these tasks when we want to analyse the future of aging mass member party organisations. Our survey of local leaders in the Ge...

Demands for free higher education and other social services such as health and basic education in Africa date back to the 1960s.

You can access the special issue here: http://www.tandfonline.com/toc/rpas20/36/1

German universities have traditionally been characterized as homogenous. However, recent policies such as the excellence initiative were supposed to introduce differentiation and incentivize universities to develop more specific missions. This study analyzes the mission statements of German universities using a quantitative content analysis. It foc...

This article focuses on the role of political parties for policy making, and it traces the development from party preferences over coalition positions to policy proposals. The main argument is that parties with more similar preferences agree on more encompassing sets of policies, and that if a coalition formulates a policy in its agreement the chan...

Many studies analysing partisan politics assume differing preferences based on parties’ ideological backgrounds without providing matching empirical analysis. This is especially true for specialized policy areas like higher education policy, which are often not included in large comparative analysis of manifestos addressing core policies. Additiona...

In this paper an attempt is made to highlight the opportunities and challenges of higher education in Africa. Of course, it is very difficult to explain the details of the opportunities and challenges of higher education systems of such a big and diverse continent like Africa in such a short essay. Modern higher education, in a relative term, has a...

Numerous studies focused on the linkages between the Bologna Process and system – as well as organizational-level changes – implying significance of the process for higher education policy dynamics. However, what has been lacking is a closer examination of the political importance of Bologna for the different actors involved and whether this varies...

The study provides an insight into student perspectives on quality in higher education, using Harvey and Green conceptualizations as the point of departure, and exploring the linkages between the views on quality, the developments of the Bologna Process and related national reforms, as well as students' motivation for and expectations from higher e...

Based on a typology provided by Manja Klemenčič, national unions of students can be conceptualised as either student associations as social movement organisations, or student associations as interest groups. While the first group is characterised by loosely network-like organisations with limited sets of resources, the second is characterised by hi...

This article examines conceptually the role of political parties in higher education policy. It discusses in how far political parties matter for changes in higher education policy, whether they offer different policy positions that might result in differing policy outputs and how one can conceptualize these differences. To do so, it develops a two...

Political parties are a key institution in modern democracies. Through representing their electorate they aggregate interests, offer coherent policy packages and when holding government offices are expected to shape policy accordingly (Klingemann, Hofferbert, & Budge, 1994). Thus, the participation of different parties in government can be one reas...

Using the seminal contribution by Gornitzka and Maassen on hybrid steering approaches in higher education as a foundation, this paper offers three main contributions. First of all, an analysis is provided of how the concept of hybrid steering approaches has been used since 2000 in the higher education literature. Second, the paper delivers a theore...

Im Wahlkampf spielen sie eine wichtige Rolle – ob bei der CDU, der SPD, der FDP oder den Grünen: die Jugendorganisationen der Parteien sind an Infoständen präsent und machen, teilweise mit großem Aufwand Wahlkampf für „ihre Parteien“. Gerade zum Erreichen der Zielgruppe der Jugendlichen und junge Leute sind sie von zentraler Bedeutung. Betrachtet m...

This article analyzes the organizational development of freier zusammenschluss von studentInnenschaften (fzs), the national union of students in Germany from its foundation until 2010. It situates it within the variety of student organizations acting on behalf of students within the multi-level system of higher education governance in Germany. Star...