This book explores the complex, multi-faceted relationships between national research and innovation systems and higher education. The transition towards knowledge societies/economies is repositioning the role of the university and transforming the academic profession. The volume provides a foundational introduction to the concepts of knowledge society and knowledge economy, and these concepts ground the detailed case studies of eighteen systems, located across five continents. Each case study was written by a leading expert in that jurisdiction, and provides a critical analysis of the research and development infrastructure, the role of universities, and the implications for the academic profession. The book describes how nations in various geographic regions and at various stages of economic maturity are restructuring their university systems to adapt to the new imperatives, and provides a cross-case analysis identifying common themes and distinctive features. In telling the story of higher education’s on-going global metamorphosis, the contributing authors place current developments in the context of the university’s historic evolution, survey the changing metrics that national governments are adopting to measure university performance, and describe a new international project, the Academic Profession in the Knowledge-based Society [APiKS] that involved a common survey of academics in more than twenty countries to take the pulse of developments “on the ground” while documenting the challenges confronting knowledge workers in the new economy.

This book presents sustainable development themes across universities and introduces methodological approaches and projects to the teaching staff. It has been prepared against this background, to identify ways to better teach about sustainability issues in a university context. It contains a set of papers presented at a Symposium with the same title, held at Manchester Metropolitan University (UK) in March 2017. The event was attended by a number of institutions of higher education active in this field. It involved researchers in the field of sustainable development in the widest sense, from business and economics, to arts and fashion, administration, environment, languages and media studies. Sustainability is seldom systematically embedded in the curriculum at higher education institutions. Yet, proper provisions for curricular integration of sustainability issues as part of teaching programmes across universities are an important element towards curriculum greening. The aims of this book are: (i) to provide teaching staff at universities active and/or interested in teaching sustainable development themes with an opportunity to document and disseminate their works (i.e. curriculum innovation, empirical work, activities, case studies practical projects); (ii) to promote information, ideas and experiences acquired in the execution of teaching courses, especially successful initiatives and good practice; (iii) to introduce methodological approaches and projects which aim to offer a better understanding of how matters related to sustainable development can be tackled in university teaching. Last but not least, a further aim of this book, prepared by the Inter-University Sustainable Development Research Programme (IUSDRP) and the World Sustainable Development Research and Transfer Centre (WSD-RTC), is to catalyse a debate on the need to promote sustainable development teaching today.

This collection, now in paperback, explores how universities are coping with the range of reforms and changes taking place across higher education today. Analyzing areas such as leadership, quality management, strategic thinking, collegiality and academic work, and from the perspective of different agents within higher education including students, academics and management, this book examines the various differences between reform attempts and the actual changes happening in universities.

This book examines campus climate data collected from undergraduates at several large, public research universities across the nation to enhance understanding of the long-term impact of campus climate on student success. Many universities have refocused their attention and energy on campus climate, defined in this volume as students’ perceptions of how welcoming and respectful their campus environments are for students from different social identities. As structural diversity continues to grow more complex on college campuses around the nation, campus leaders have begun to take more steps to understand campus climate and address persistent inequalities, acts of discrimination, and violence against students from diverse backgrounds. The authors in this volume address initiatives to improve campus climate and provide empirical evidence on the effectiveness of those programs.

How can one make state administrative systems interesting, embody an abstract public ethos and give heroism to homogeneity? The discipline of literature and bureaucracy dismisses Weber's 'neurocrat'. Milton, Trollope and Hare are case studies on implementing the 'what if' visions literature explored during a period of great change in public service