Toward a fossil free research norm in Dutch higher education

Teaching in Higher Education Institutions (HEI) requests training and skills as researching. Unfortunately, on an international level the teaching training programme is not always crystal and clear, or even worse, not requested. Often researchers are asked to provide lectures without receiving proper formation. This approach creates sensible depletion in the educational quality. Offering an overview on how the Dutch HEIs are tackling the problem, the aim of this study is twofold: (i) presenting the University Teaching Qualification (UTQ) from a career development perspective and (ii) giving a qualitative evaluation of the entire process from the point of view of UTQ supervisors and lecturers. Finally concluding the relevance of such a professionalization programme.

Understanding the process of initiation, design, implementation and embedding of educational innovations in higher education is necessary to develop better strategies for sustainable, large-scale educational innovation. Often early initiated educational innovation projects are not evaluated well enough, making it hard to identify lessons learned. The aim of this study is to investigate how project leaders of innovation projects in Dutch higher education institutions are coping with organizational challenges. To address this we analysed qualitative focus group data with innovators that run projects at Dutch higher education institutions through the lens of contextual coping theory. Results show that the innovators identified challenges (primary appraisal), proposed possible solutions (secondary appraisal) and also were able to take concrete steps (coping efforts) to overcome challenges to design and implement open online educational innovations. From these findings it can be concluded that bottom-up initiatives can create awareness and are capable of finding local resources to establish support for embedding innovations locally, yet, appropriate, synchronized and timely top-down action is needed in order to create a sustainable and institution wide support system for experimentation and embedding of educational innovations. These findings will contribute towards developing better strategies to develop innovative educational practices and quality education.

Academic Freedom is a sacrosanct value on American university campuses. Virtually all research institutions, public and private, have explicitly adopted some form of the American Association of University Professors’ 1940 Statement of Principles on Academic Freedom and Tenure or the organization’s the 1915 Declaration of Principles on Academic Freedom & Tenure. Because of the near universal acceptance of the principle of academic freedom, there is a common belief that the United States Constitution recognizes academic freedom and, more importantly, confers “special rights” on the persons and institutions of academia. Yet, despite its almost universal acceptance by faculty and administrators and despite its constant use as a constitutional theory whenever faculty and/or administrators dislike a government program, academic freedom is a constitutional myth. The rights of individual academics or of academic institutions are no greater than the rights of individual non-academics or of non-academic agencies or institutions. Put another way, from a constitutional standpoint, there is nothing special about the academic setting. Academic Freedom is no greater, and no lesser, than the constitutional rights of non-academics or ordinary state agencies. Nevertheless, academic freedom must be respected as a practical reality. There are important public policy reasons why university professors should have wide latitude in their research, writing, and teaching efforts. At the same time, institutions should be given a large amount of discretion in determining the scope of their missions. In other words, while academic freedom is not a federal constitutional value, it should be an important public policy consideration and, perhaps, even a state constitutional value. The purpose of this Article is twofold. First, it seeks to demonstrate that academic freedom is a constitutional myth. Institutional academic freedom, the idea that institutions of higher education have a federal constitutional right to be free from outside control, is simply incompatible with constitutional realities. Moreover, professors do not have an individual constitutional right to academic freedom. In short, the rights of professors and the institutions that employ them are no greater than the rights of non-academic employees and non-academic organizations. Second, it attempts to explain why respect for academic freedom is a practical reality.

and a Master of Divinity student at the

In accordance with the recommendation concerning the status of higher‐education teaching personnel approved by the General Conference of UNESCO in November 1997, higher education institutions and their academic personnel have long been expected to exercise their intellectual capacity and their moral prestige to defend and actively disseminate universally‐accepted values; and enjoy full academic autonomy and freedom, conceived as a set of rights and duties, while being fully responsible and accountable to society. Academic freedom is a key parameter of sound governance of higher education systems in any country. To what extent can academic freedom be a function of effective management systems and does it have any implications for quality education in developing countries? The paper answers in the affirmative. Data from a sample of academic staff, university managers, students and policy‐makers were analysed using correlation and regression techniques and it was found that management significantly contributes to academic freedom in higher educational institutions. In this way, a better‐managed institution enhances academic freedom and this consequently offers answers to the quality of education. The results are compared with international findings and policy and management implications are presented. A conceptual framework is suggested that links management systems with academic freedom and the quality of education, using the systems theory approach.

Major findings and theoretical insights gained by a study on the impact of external review reports in Dutch higher education are presented. A model of argumentation around review recommendations is presented and illustrated by cases from Dutch higher education institutions. Practical implications of using the model as a predictive tool for success and failure and as a basis for the development of a practical instrument for optimisation of external quality reviews' effects and discussed.

The article is aimed to provide content analysis of the international discourse on interaction and cooperation between higher education institutions and non-governmental organizations. Being different in nature and characteristics, higher education institutions and non-governmental organizations are social actors whose activities, among other things, are aimed at ensuring the development of the society. In order to achieve this aim, higher education institutions and non-governmental organizations cooperate in various fields and formats that go beyond the higher education sector.
 An important result of the content analysis is introduction of the terminological phrase "non-governmental organization in higher education", which corresponds to the international classifiers "World Association of Non-Governmental Organizations" and "International Classification of Non-profit Organizations". The typology of " non-governmental higher education organization" includes non-governmental organizations whose activities are related to the provision of access to higher education, the organization of educational services and the quality assurance of higher education. The categorical conceptual apparatus for describing cooperation between higher education institutions and non-governmental organizations needs to be expanded and clarified in order to fully and adequately specify the processes of their interaction.
 The analysis of the intellectual and documentary heritage of the Bologna Process, the EU, UNESCO, and other international associations shows that cooperation between higher education institutions and non-governmental organizations is not only to ensure access to higher education, butit is much more wider. Non-governmental organizations are able to organize and provide educational services, such as in the field of non-formal education; partner with higher education institutions in projects addressed to local communities. In addition, non-governmental organizations are an important mechanism for articulating and aggregating the interests and requests of citizens, communities, local communities for higher education, and higher education institutions.
 Studying the mechanisms of cooperation between higher education institutions and non-governmental organizations is of great practical importance, since the latter are an authoritative tool for disseminating academic knowledge and practical development of universities, forming a 'knowledge society' and satisfying the needs of the society.

Itzhak Galnoor Academic Freedom under Political Duress: Israel POLITICAL DURESS WITHIN THE ACADEMIC COMMUNITY IS A STRONG sense that there is a threat of external interference with core academic values and freedoms such as free inquiry, free speech, institutional autonomy, and personal safety. Of course, a “strong sense” is subjective and not easily measurable and a certain degree of duress is probably part and parcel of academic life. Political duress in academia, however, is somewhat more focused because it relates to intended attempts to curtail the freedoms mentioned above, or at least to restrain them. Consequently, when we say “political” we need to specify the world­ view and the interests involved. After a short introduction on the background of Israeli Higher Education Institutions (HEI), this article will focus on two current threats to academic freedom in Israel. First, political intimidation origi­ nating from extreme nationalistic and religious groups aimed at silenc­ ing “ nonloyal” voices inside as well as outside the universities; second, a process of “commodification” in the form of political-administrative pressures on HEI, and the enforcement of “management” and privatiza­ tion policies. Academic freedom is under duress in Israel because of the combination of these two different forces. They have been persistent for quite some tim e and now share a general attitude and goal; the “tam ing” of HEI. The result has been a m ajor crisis in Israeli higher education, both morally and financially. social research Voi 76 : No 2 : Summer 2009 541 BACKGROUND Education and learning, including higher education, were a top public priority among Jews in British Mandate Palestine and those in the diaspora concerned with Jewish settlement in Palestine before Israel was established in 1948. The Institute of Technology (Technion, 1924), the Hebrew University (1925 ), and the Weizmann Institute (1934) were established in the prestate period and achieved international reputa­ tion early in their existence. In the first years o f the state most spheres of life—health services, housing, and primary and secondary education—were highly politicized, and some of these services were run by organizations directly affiliated with political parties (Galnoor, 1985: 154-165). One area which was surprisingly saved from partisan politics was Higher Education (HE). This was surprising for three reasons. First, it would have been very tempting to try and harness HE to the pioneering collec­ tive endeavors of the new state by political interventions in the curricu­ lum and in other ways. Second, HEI, which required relatively heavy investments (tuition was very low, almost free), were financed by the state and donations from abroad. Third, although in the highly central­ ized state of that period the opposition to the policies of the dominant party was weak, some of the most vocal opposing views to government policies in the area of security and foreign affairs could be heard from a few rather influential professors at the Hebrew University. The most famous among them were Judah L. Magnes, Martin Buber, and later Yeshayahu Leibovitz. Thus one would have expected an attempt by the government to curtail this opposition and even set up a legal and organizational structure capable of doing so. It should be noted that the right-wing opposition parties in the Knesset would have not objected, since the dissenting academics were considered to be on the left as far as national issues were concerned. To be sure, all of the above occurred to some extent: there were pressures to be” relevant” to nation-building (for example, the high priority given to setting up a Faculty of Agriculture at the Hebrew University); attempts to delegitimize dissenting academ­ 542 social research ics; and some attempts to control HE administratively. In retrospect, however, we can see and appreciate that none of these measures were pushed relentlessly or actually succeeded. The best example of this fail­ ure of political intervention in the early years of the state is the Higher Education Law of 1958. In the deliberations in the Knesset on this bill there were suggestions to put HE under tight control of the Ministry of Education, or to set up a supervising council composed of represen­ tatives of the political parties (Volansky, 2005: 31-63). In the end, this law...

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to show the complex positionality and the complexity that comes with the study of whiteness in South African higher education by Dutch, white academics. This complexity stems from the long-standing relationship between Dutch universities, the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (VUA) in particular, with their South African counterparts, which predominantly supported apartheid with reference to a shared religious (Protestant) background.Design/methodology/approachThe paper rests upon a literature review of the development of South African higher education, and an assessment of the prominent role played by the Dutch Vrije Universiteit in support of the all-white, Afrikaans Potchefstroom University (presently North-West University). The authors, who are both involved in the institutional cooperation between Vrije Universiteit and South African universities, reflect on the complexity of this relationship by providing auto-ethnographic evidence from their own (religious) biography.FindingsThe paper reflects the ambiguous historical as well as contemporary contexts and ties that bind Vrije Universiteit to South African universities, especially formerly Afrikaans-speaking ones. The ambiguity is about the comfort of sharing an identity with formerly Afrikaans-speaking universities, on the one hand, and the discomfort of historical and political complicities in a (still) segregated South African society on the other hand.Originality/valueThis auto-ethnographic paper breathes an atmosphere of a “coming out” that is not very common in academic writing. It is a reflection and testimony of a lifelong immersion in VUA-South African academic research relations in which historical, institutional, and personal contexts intermingle and lead to a unique positionality leading to “breaking silences” around these complex relations.

This paper offers a historical analysis of organizational identity development at a particular Dutch university, the Vrije Universiteit (VU) Amsterdam. Our analysis contributes to the discussion on what factors contribute to organizational identity maintenance and evolution. Whereas the literature suggests a rather straightforward development, with national and institutional governance arrangements offering more institutional autonomy and providing significant scope for identity development and profiling, this case study shows that these relationships between identity, governance, and autonomy are not that obvious. In this particular case, the opposite happened. Despite more autonomy, VU Amsterdam was not able to maintain its historically distinctive identity, nor was it able to replace this with a new, unambiguous identity. External factors (demographics) and internal dynamics (leadership strategies) explain the anomalies.

الحریة الأکادیمیة والقیم الجامعیة

Corrigendum to position statement: Political interference in sexual and reproductive health research and health professional education [Nursing Outlook 65/2 (2017) 242–245

One of the main objects of the recently developed policy for Dutch higher education regards the creation of a more diversified higher education system with flexible and adaptive institutions. The nature of the proposed system should, among other things, reveal itself in meaningful and discriminating institutional profiles, based on strategic institutional choices. This article reflects on the degree to which these objects are realized. After the introduction of the new planning system in Dutch higher education, the article deals with the possibility of strategic planning in higher education institutions in general. Three different, but not necessary independent, models are distinguished: the linear strategy model, the adaptive strategy model and the interpretive strategy model. It is argued that the latter model can be applied best to higher education institutions. Some evidence on strategic planning in Dutch higher education illustrates the practice in this field. Empirical evidence shows that the governmental aim to increase the diversity in Dutch higher education is not very successful up till now. On the contrary, it seems that various homogenizing developments emerge. The concept of institutional isomorphism helps to explain some of the problems institutions encounter when trying to formulate and implement their strategies.

Higher education is facing increasing challenges. Economic and financial pressures have heightened the strain on the sustainability of higher education institutions (HEIs). These pressures have prompted a shift toward adopting business models and commercial practices to maintain institutional operations. While these changes have enabled some innovations, they have also placed traditional academic dynamics under significant pressure. After all, the commercialisation of HEIs comes with its own challenges and has influenced (directly and indirectly) academic freedom, constitutional values, and established approaches to teaching, learning and research. This co-edited book explores the growing tension between academic freedom and the commercial priorities of HEIs, highlighting the challenge of balancing financial sustainability with higher education’s function of being centres of knowledge, innovation and social change. Through an analysis of selected legal, academic, and operational dimensions, this book examines how HEIs can navigate these demands while maintaining their core identity. Organised around three key themes, the first focuses on the business and commercial aspects of HEIs, analysing how these influence institutional operations. Topics under this theme include issues such as corruption, procurement practices, the use of demand guarantees in construction contracts, and the legal nature of the student-university relationship. The second theme examines how the business and commercial focus of HEIs can influence academic freedom. Topics under this theme includes an analysis of the rights of academics to freedom of expression and their ability to critique their employers, the implications of Ghana’s proposed Anti-LGBTQ+ Bill on academic freedom, and the effects of disciplinary procedures on academic freedom in Zimbabwean state universities. The third theme addresses the impact of commercialisation on teaching, learning, and pedagogical approaches within HEIs. Topics under this theme include the challenges faced by students with disabilities and the role of HEIs in breaking down barriers to inclusion, the influence of HEI structures on the decolonisation of international law, and the ways in which HEIs responded to the effects of Covid-19 on first-year law students at the University of Johannesburg. The academic contribution in this book highlights that HEIs serve a critical social function that goes beyond profit-making or financial viability. This social responsibility, rooted in knowledge creation and societal advancement, should remain the primary focus. Although commercialisation is an unavoidable reality, HEIs should ultimately prioritise their social mandate over profit-driven objectives, ensuring that their core mission is not overshadowed by commercial imperatives.

The Netherlands Universities Foundation for International Cooperation (Nuffic) conducted a study [1, 2] into institutional policy on internationalization in 2014 in the Netherlands. This study included most Dutch Higher Education Institutions (HEIs). Of these, 27 (59%) had a central-level plan, eight (17%) were developing such a plan, whilst seven (15%) did not have a separate central-level plan. Only four of the HEIs (9%) in the study did not have a central-level internationalization policy. It can be concluded that the penetration of internationalization in terms of policy is high in the Netherlands. This article is a part of an extensive research project developed at HAN University of Applied Sciences and traces the recent institutional developments within the context of its strategic planning and internationalization policies. In particular, this article deals with the “Articulated Institutional Commitment” dimension of the Comprehensive Internationalization CIGE model [3].