Bernd Wächter Knihy

Over the past 15 years, European cooperation in higher education has increased dramatically. In the same period, a large number of academic associations have come into beiing. A few insiders are familar with their names, but hardly anyone knows what they actually do. What is their history? What are their aims, their main activities, their publications and their most noteworthy projects? How are they governde? Where can they be contacted? This publication answers these and many other related questions. It attempts to shed light on the „inner workings“ of the 37 most important academic networks in Europe in the form of standardisesd portraits. The book also contains short profiles ot important higher education associations from outside Europe, as well as a „postscript“ analysis containing a short typology and history of European networks in the tertiary sector.

Scholarly interest in questions of the internationalisation of higher education has recently risen markedly. Internationalisation has indeed become one of the key issues in the global higher education debate of the last decade of this millennium. In contrast to this general trend, the international cooperation efforts of the particular segment of non-university higher education has so far not been the object of much scrutiny. Given the growing importance of the sector, this state of affairs is hardly justified. This is why the Academic Cooperation Association embarked, in late 1998, on the project “Internationalisation in European Non-University Higher Education”. This publication presents the results of this project.

In the second half of 1998, the Academic Cooperation Association (ACA) decided to embark on a project devoted to the state of play in internationalisation of higher education. After a long period during which international cooperation had been at best a minor concern among the topical issues in the higher ducation debate, it started to move centre-stage in the 1990s. It thus appeared to be the right time to attempt to take stock of developments, and to look at the agendas ahead of us. The present publication contains the results of this project, which fall into two related but distinct parts. Part I consists of a longer essay, which tries to systematise the issue of internationalisation by giving an overview. The essay looks at the motivations for internationalisation, the activities that constitute internationalisation, and the policies of internationalisation. It also includes a case study of international cooperation in Europe, one of the continents where international higher education cooperation is well advanced. This paper was written by Bernd Wächter, Director of ACA, in collaboration with Aaro Ollikainen, ACA research officer from CIMO in Helsinki, and Brigitte Hasewend, Deputy Director of ACA.

This is the third study on English-medium instruction of the Academic Cooperation Association (ACA). Like its predecessors, this report maps the provision of English-taught Bachelor and Master programmes in non-English-speaking European countries. Using the results of its predecessor publications as historical references, the present study is able to trace the quantitative - and, to an extent, qualitative - development of English-medium instruction over a 12-year period

Internationalisation and international mobility, inclusiveness, excellence and funding are themes high on the higher education agenda. There is no shortage of literature on them, and there are conferences galore devoted to them. But they are usually dealt with in isolation, which leads to a distorting ‘single issue’ view of higher education. This book – and the conference it emerged from – tried to avoid this mistake. It looks at the ‘inter-relationships’ between the four issues. Can a socially inclusive and responsible university also achieve academic excellence? Can only rich universities be truly international, or do universities become rich through internationalisation? Is excellence possible without strong funding, or does it presuppose it? These are only some of questions which this volume addresses. The ten contributions developed out of presentations given at the 2012 Annual Conference of the Academic Cooperation Association (ACA). The production of this book, as well as the above-mentioned conference, was supported by the European Commission in the Framework of its Lifelong Learning Programme.

International students have long favoured Anglophone countries as study destinations. And it goes without saying that the role of English as the lingua franca has been instrumental in attracting foreign students. In the last years of the past century, continental European higher education institutions started to teach in the English language, too, seeking to overcome their linguistic drawback. In 2002, the Academic Cooperation Association (ACA) produced the first ever overview and analysis of the phenomenon. The study, published in the ACA Papers on International Cooperation in Education, found that English-medium tuition in continental Europe was still a ‘marginal phenomenon’ then - even though the offer was expanding by the day. How has the situation developed since? The present book provides the answer to this question. Drawing a detailed European map of English-medium tuition in 27 European countries, it is essential reading for anyone interested in curricular internationalisation – and not least for those from English-speaking countries challenged by Europe’s English-taught provision.

Internationalisation of higher education, once a marginal concern, has moved centre-stage. It has become „mainstreamed“ and is regarded as part and parcel of „higher education policy“. What was earlier called education policy has become subject to international debate and decision-making and thus of „internationalisation“. As a result, the activities referred to under the term „internationalisation“ have become widened. There are two types of internationalisation. „Old internationalisation“ concerns the mobility of students and scholars. „New internationalisa-tion“ deals with joint international efforts related to structural and regulatory issues of higher education systems, for example quality assuran-ce, lifelong learning and online education. The present volume traces this development. The papers in this book were first presented at the 10-year anniversary conference of the Academic Cooperation Association (ACA) in Gent/Belgium in 2003. All authors are internationally-renonowned specialists in their field.

The IT revolution is reshaping higher education. Already, there are predictions of the death of the “brick-and-mortar” university, soon to be replaced by online “click” or “virtual” institutions. Even if this expectation should turn out to be exaggerated, the IT drive will eventually bring about major changes. One affected area could be the internationalisation of higher education. Will online learning replace traditional international activities in the future, such as study or teaching in another country? And will it be necessary to internationalise the content and format of curricula in the future if students can tap into programmes from all over the globe via the Internet? International experts explored these and related questions in a seminar the Academic Cooperation Association (ACA) and the Norwegian Centre for International University Cooperation (SIU) held in the summer of 2001. This publication presents the seminar’s major outcomes.