Scholarship Between Policy and Science

Abstract: Together with overall research on higher education, comparative and international studies of higher education have expanded considerably over the past decade in different parts of the world. While truly comparative research is still rather rare, it is beginning to yield important theoretical insights into such issues as the institutionalization of higher education, governance, access, curricula, and quality assessment. In addition, a growing body of more descriptive work on higher education, together with new and expanding data sources, provides an increasingly rich basis for further comparative work along different methodological lines. The gap between theoretically inspired and policy-triggered research on higher education is still considerable, but some initial bridges are being built