Patterns of Subject Mix in Higher Education Institutions : A First Empirical Analysis Using the AQUAMETH Database

Teaching and research are organised differently between subject domains: attempts to construct typologies of higher education institutions, however, often do not include quantitative indicators concerning subject mix which would allow systematic comparisons of large numbers of higher education institutions among different countries, as the availability of data for such indicators is limited. In this paper, we present an exploratory approach for the construction of such indicators. The database constructed in the AQUAMETH project, which includes also data disaggregated at the disciplinary level, is explored with the aim of understanding patterns of subject mix. For six European countries, an exploratory and descriptive analysis of staff composition divided in four large domains (medical sciences, engineering and technology, natural sciences and social sciences and humanities) is performed, which leads to a classification distinguishing between specialist and generalist institutions. Among the latter, a further distinction is made based on the presence or absence of a medical department. Preliminary exploration of this classification and its comparison with other indicators show the influence of long term dynamics on the subject mix of individual higher education institutions, but also underline disciplinary differences, for example regarding student to staff ratios, as well as national patterns, for example regarding the number of PhD degrees per 100 undergraduate students. Despite its many limitations, this exploratory approach allows defining a classification of higher education institutions that accounts for a large share of differences between the analysed higher education institutions.

Doctoral education's reform in Switzerland and Norway : a public management analyis

This doctoral thesis examines a recent phenomenon in European higher education, namely the reform of doctoral education. On the basis of a number of case studies, consisting of Swiss and Norwegian doctoral schools, and their institutional, national and international context, it demonstrates to what extent changes appear in doctoral education and its governance. Findings indicate new practices regarding doctoral students' recruitment, curricular component, supervision, scientific exchange, follow-up and their career. Doctoral education's character is not anymore exclusively determined by individual supervisors, but increasingly by interdisciplinary and interinstitutional colleges of academics. Finally, general governance patterns are identified: according to the type of scientific discipline and higher education institution, the institution's size and national political system, the field of higher education is more or less dominated by New Public Management or Network Governance characteristics.