Descriptive Analysis of Benchmarking in Respect to SMART/UNI-Q Systems’ Intellectual Integrations within the European Higher Education Area

Abstract

Introduction. The strategy for the development of international education ERASMUS 20.30 stimulates the study of how intellectual integration programmes are introduced into the system of further education of universities around the world. The research is relevant, for studying the integration of intellectual potential in a single space of higher and further education EHEA allows to determine the efficacy of application of world benchmarking technologies in the management of SMART/UNI-Q systems and the convergence of world universities. The EU Education Department conditioned the significance of the research content by the target request to investigate the change in the benchmarking mission at the international education market and to make a thorough informational review of its application in the international activities of universities in the EU, CIS and the Russian Federation for the dissemination of information by international partner universities of ERASMUS central office. The study aims at identifying general and specific indicators of sustainable international partnerships that affect consumer demand at the international education and labour markets by means of concretization of an extensive descriptive analysis of the intellectual integration benchmarking and the description of the processes of benchmarking technology application, its scientific identification and implementation in individual universities, university alliances and consortia. Researchers were looking for an answer to the question: why, with high interest and theoretical recognition of technology benchmarking in quality management, universities show low rates of benchmarking in assessing the quality of their international activities. Materials and Methods. It is the first time that the research of benchmarking intellectual integrations in the university international activities uses the method of descriptive analysis. The study identifies active sectors of the SMART / UNI-Q benchmarking for the entire set of data voluntarily submitted by the universities participating in the projects of the Austrian Institute for Intellectual Integrations in the pre-pandemic period of 2017-2020. The participating countries have analyzed the share of key participants and the share of published benchmarking studies. The study analyzes the changes in the benchmarking mission in the international education market in accordance with the needs of global consumers. The analysis uses the data of the bases of the EU Department of Education, the ETINED platform and open-access European dissertation reviews portals. The research uses the WERGELAND European Resource Center data as the comparison point indicators. The study presents an analysis of five segments of international benchmarking: transparency, diversity, “product line”, digital activity, and digital management tools. Modus infographics shows the real, improved and ideal models. The applied comparative analysis studies the asynchrony of academic mobility during the COVID crisis. Results. The research findings show low value of efficiency indicators for the use of intellectual integration benchmarking in the international cooperation of university alliances. The predominance and stable efficiency in the use of benchmarking takes place at certain universities in Europe during periods of activity in implementing new strategies of international education and only for a short time most often during the periods of university accreditation. The model for overcoming sustainable development asynchronies in the management of SMART/UNI-Q systems according to the criterion of guaranteeing the quality of higher education in international cooperation EHEA is not final and today it is possible to characterize it through descriptive indicators. Amid the economic crisis and turbulence associated with the COVID-19 pandemic, a decline in large-scale academic mobility is an inevitable trend. However, due to the growing difference in the responses of economies and management in the field of higher vocational education between developed and less developed countries, as well as with the strengthening of general trends in economic integration, the number of academic migrants is likely to increase. Asynchrony, that is, unevenness, of opportunities and adaptation to the new digital environment of university consortia and the possibility to implement the opportunities in practice has become a psychological problem of scientific migration. Discussion and Conclusion. The materials of this article will be useful to CEO-s of international universities, heads of departments of international activities, employees of ERASMUS national offices, coordinators of ERASMUS+ projects, departments of continuing professional education and academic mobility in the development of promising strategies for external and internal benchmarking of inter-university projects of intellectual integration and international activity quality management.