Studying the heterogeneity of European higher education institutions

Renato Bruni,Giuseppe Catalano,Cinzia Daraio,Henk F Moed,Martina Gregori

doi:10.1007/s11192-020-03717-w

Renato Bruni, Giuseppe Catalano + Show 3 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-020-03717-w

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Journal: Scientometrics	Publication Date: Oct 29, 2020
Citations: 11	License type: open-access

Affiliation: Sapienza University of Rome

Abstract

The heterogeneity of the Higher Education (HE) Institutions is one of the main critical issues in the assessment of their performance. This paper adopts a multi-level and multi-dimensional perspective, combining national (macro) and institution (micro) level data, and measuring both research and teaching activity, using performance indicators derived from the European Tertiary Education Register, CWTS Leiden Ranking, and PATSTAT patent database. Clustering and efficiency analysis are combined to characterize the heterogeneity of national HE systems in European countries, and reveal the potential of using micro level data to characterize national level performance. Large differences are observed between the European countries, partially due to the fact that they are in different phases of their scientific (and economic) development and of the re-structuring of their HE systems. Evidence is found that universities specializing either in teaching or in research tend to have a higher efficiency than those institutions balancing research and teaching. Tradeoffs are observed between undergraduate and post-graduate activities, and a “Matthew cumulative effect” seems in place on the European institutions analysed: high quality research is able to attract external funds that stimulate innovative and patenting activities that in turn are self-reinforcing to the scientific activities. The results reveal once more the limits and dangers of one-dimensional approaches to the performance of HEIs.

Highlights

The measurement of academic performance is a relevant issue at the intersection between political science and informetrics
The aim to tackle the heterogeneity of European Higher Education Institutions is ambitious and requires an in-depth analysis from a multi-level and multi-methods perspective
This work presents an integrated set of approaches to the problem, developed to capture the main elements underlying the differentiation of European Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) in performance, production strategies and missions

Summary

Introduction

The measurement of academic performance is a relevant issue at the intersection between political science and informetrics. Numerous international comparisons (rankings) of Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) are regularly published—such as Shanghai, Times. Higher Education and Leiden Ranking; HEIs performance analysis still represents a challenging task. Higher education systems are complex, characterized by multilevels (course, institution, nation, etc.), multi-objectives (i.e. teaching, research, third mission activities) and heterogeneity. Heterogeneity is one of the main critical issues to address in any benchmarking analysis. Attention to the topic has been dedicated for long from both scholars and policy-makers; the diversity in higher education systems results to be difficult to tackle, a general conceptualization is still lacking (Huisman et al 2015) and the empirical analysis of the related literature seems to lead to contradictory outcomes (Barbato and Turri 2019)

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