Academic identities, academic challenges? American and European experiences of the transformation of higher education and research

Abstract

The university in Europe is presently met with many new expectations challenging established practices and self-understandings of academics. In the European Union, the higher education and research system has become a foremost tool of change. This book demonstrates that much of the political rhetoric about the construction of the future knowledge economy of Europe and the promotion of a European Higher Education Area may contradict basic values that give Europe its identity as a cultural region. The book raises issues relating to elitism and democracy, internationalisation and regionalisation, and new forms of governance in higher education and research.