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Higher Education Looking Forward: an agenda for future research - Synthesis report of the European Science Foundation ‘Forward Look’ on Higher education in Europe beyond 2010: resolving conflicting social and economic expectations
Abstract
This is the final report of a project funded by the European Science Foundation as part of its Forward Look programme. It is based on a series of literature reviews discussed at workshops across Europe during 2006-7.Research themes covered are Higher Education and the Knowledge Society Discourse; Higher Education and the Achievement (or Prevention) of Equity and Social Justice; Higher Education and its Communities; the 'Steering' of Higher Education Systems; and The Changing Patterns of the Higher Education Systems in Europe. In the synthesis report, the authors draw on the reviews of the above themes (published in the ESF report: Higher Education Looking Forward: relations between higher education and society) to propose an agenda for future research on the relationship between higher education and social change. The report is structured around four main sections: Changing Socio-Political Contexts; Mechanisms of Interaction between Society and Higher Education; the Implications for Higher Education; and Higher Education's Impact on Society. It also contains a discussion of methodological issues in the research field. The report concludes that 'the purpose of researching higher education is not just to make higher education ‘better’ – although hopefully it will also do that – but to enhance our understanding of contemporary societies and the futures that are available to them. The parts that learning, knowledge and science in all their forms and in all their organisational settings have to play in achieving such understandings and in shaping such futures deserve, we believe, to have a central place in social science endeavoursSimilar works
Full text
This paper was published in Open Research Online (The Open University).
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