Hochschulkooperationen in Grenzräumen

Abstract

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Abstract This article discusses the contribution of cross-border university initiatives to the development of a joint Europe of Knowledge and the European Higher Education Area as envisaged in the Lisbon Agenda and Bologna Process. Despite the fact that the globalization of knowledge and economic systems is culminating in a “knowledge society”, culturally based knowledge and the national embeddedness of institutions have in no way ceased to matter. This becomes especially apparent in collaborations of universities in border regions where different national educational systems and learning cultures meet in close contact. University cross-border collaborations therefore nearly constitute a laboratory situation with regard to the compatibility of European institutions of higher learning. They also represent an ideal research field with which to recognize the fits and misfits between different knowledge cultures in Europe and to investigate the options and obstacles of building the European Higher Education Area. The study explores innovative solutions in selected case studies that include both formal and informal procedures of institution-building and that introduce a conceptual framework for empirical analysis in this research field.