How do universities compete? Studies in Higher Education 49 (10) Special Issue.

This special issue of Studies in Higher Education (Volume 49, Issue 10 (2024), ed. by R. Bloch, A. Mitterle, & T. Seidenschnur, brings together sociological ‘thought leaders’ to critically examine the nature of the concept of ‘competition’ and how competitive practices are realised in different ways in the higher education sector.

‘Competition’ is ubiquitous in many fields, particularly in higher education today. Though at first sight straightforward and largely transactional in nature, it is in fact multi-layered and somewhat opaque. In higher education, competition informs and sustains practices both within the institution itself and in relation to external determinants of value such as rank, research excellence, internationalisation and technological innovation. As competitive actors, universities thus compete not only for financial resources and academic prestige, but also for symbolic capital, global visibility and strategic partnerships.

The articles in this special issue offer a context-sensitive framework for analysis that responds to the empirically observable competition in the higher education sector. Initially aimed at increasing efficiency, competition today is characterised by a broad spectrum of intended and unintended effects, which are discussed in this special issue.

Studies in Higher Education, Volume 49, Issue 10 (2024) contains among others, the following articles by INCHER members  & their co-authors:

Bloch, R., Mitterle, A., & Seidenschnur, T. (2024). How do universities compete? Introduction to the special issue. Studies in Higher Education, 49(10), 1701–1709. https://doi.org/10.1080/03075079.2024.2395418

Seidenschnur, T., Götze, N., & Krücken, G. (2024). Multiple roles of the state – federal states and their roles in how universities compete in Germany. Studies in Higher Education, 49(10), 1753–1762. https://doi.org/10.1080/03075079.2024.2392660

Other contributions are:

Kimmo Alajoutsijärvi, Kerttu Kettunen, Rómulo Pinheiro: Ideologies shaping university competition

Alexander Mitterle, Roland Bloch: Beyond markets. On field competition in higher education

Emily Levine, Mitchell Stevens: Neither State nor Market: Competitive Emulation in Higher Education

Ravit Mizrahi-Shtelman, Gili Drori: Reference universe and competition in higher education: Israeli higher education organizations constituting excellence

Miguel Antonio Lim, Bing Liu, Zhuo Sun: De-westernising competition: ‘Harmony of competition’ in Chinese higher education

David John Frank, John W. Meyer: On university competition