Abstract Institutional adoption of blended learning has significantly grown in higher education, yet limited research explores how lecturers experience mandated and top-down implementation, particularly in resource-constrained contexts. This mixed-methods study examines these experiences at a university undergoing rapid, institution-driven adoption of blended learning. Ninety-nine lecturers participated in a survey and interviews, complemented by content analysis of relevant institutional documents. Findings show that although lecturers recognised blended learning’s pedagogical value for enhancing student learning, the fast-track nature of the adoption hindered the university’s ability to effectively plan and execute the implementation. As a result, lecturers encountered multiple barriers, including low self-efficacy, institutional readiness, and increased workload, which collectively increased staff frustration and reduced confidence in the initiative. The study highlights how top-down adoption can unintentionally hinder teaching quality when support structures are underdeveloped, underscoring the need for more responsive planning and capacity building in institutional rollouts of blended learning.

Abstract This article examines the role of international organisations and supranational actors, conceptualised here as international institutions, in disseminating inclusive higher education norms for refugees, with a focus on their influence at the national level in Turkey. Using primary documents and expert interviews, the article analyses how international institutions facilitate the transfer of norms, provide funding and shape policy design in crisis contexts. The findings reveal that international institution-led initiatives in Turkey have supplemented crisis-responsive education frameworks, serving as mechanisms to support Syrian youth and as tools to promote inclusion. The analysis reveals that higher education functions as both a humanitarian response and a strategic policy area. International norms are adapted and negotiated within domestic settings and applied selectively. Overall, the article explains why the diffusion of higher education norms for refugees is incomplete. It reveals how international institutions contribute to shaping national policy during times of crisis, as well as the limitations they face due to domestic political priorities and power relations.

Abstract This study examines the research development of Sino-foreign cooperative universities (SFCUs) in China, analyzing how these institutions navigate their dual identity within global academic standards and local higher education systems. Using comprehensive data from SciVal covering nine SFCUs from 2014 to 2023, we analyze research output, impact, collaboration patterns, and funding sources, comparing performance with established Project 985 and 211 universities. Despite producing smaller publication volumes than established Chinese universities, SFCUs demonstrate comparable or superior research quality metrics. SFCUs exhibit distinctive collaboration patterns, maintaining international collaboration rates above 56% compared to approximately 30% for traditional Chinese universities. However, longitudinal analysis reveals evolving strategies, with most SFCUs gradually increasing national collaboration while maintaining strong international connections. Institutional partnerships and funding sources reveal significant variation in balancing global integration and local responsiveness, with the National Natural Science Foundation of China emerging as the dominant funding source across all institutions. Our findings challenge simplified characterizations of dual identity, revealing it as a dynamic, multidimensional phenomenon that evolves over time.

Abstract This article focuses on the autonomy of Finnish universities’ internationalisation considering the performance-based funding. Working group documentation and ministry memoranda proposing the funding model and introducing new features in the internationalisation funding were analysed along with the Ministry of Education and Culture documentation on strategic funding and the performance agreements of universities. An abductive qualitative content analysis was conducted guided by parameters derived from international guidelines and declarations that define academic freedom and autonomy. The resource dependence theory served as the theoretical underpinning of the study on Finnish higher education, which has a high share of government funding with a strong performance-orientation. The findings indicated that the programme-based internationalisation funding increased the constraints on autonomy regarding internationalisation. However, the strategic funding also comprised university-specific goals for internationalisation, thereby allowing for institutional autonomy. The changes to the funding were perceived as abrupt policy shifts increasing unpredictability and lacking transparency.

Abstract Unintended policy consequences in higher education may arise when reforms targeting specific student groups interact with stratified institutional landscapes, with potential spillover effects on structurally disadvantaged domestic populations. This article examines a policy reform aimed at international students—specifically, the 2014 tightening of admission criteria at a Swiss elite STEM higher education institution (HEI)—and its broader, unforeseen impact on first-generation domestic students. Using administrative data and a quasi-experimental design, we find lower attrition among international students after the policy change and no observable change in Swiss students’ graduation rates. At the same time, enrolment of Swiss students declines—most notably among first-generation students—with a compensating increase in enrolment at less selective institutions, concentrated in fields that overlap with the elite programmes affected by the policy. These patterns suggest that the reform altered both formal access and perceptions of attainability, risk and institutional fit, aligning with arguments of constrained educational choice. The findings highlight redistributive costs of regulating international student inflow—shifting opportunities away from first-generation domestic students—and call for system-level governance that anticipates indirect effects on equity.

Abstract Building on a rich set of policy documents and interview data, and using the concept of the epistemic infrastructure, the article focuses on an analysis of how European HE expert actors became the preferred advisers for Indonesia’s HE quality assurance system. As the article shows, working towards the quality assurance of higher education institutions in Indonesia serves not only for the apparent purpose of offering technocratic and rational solutions to improving HE governance and delivery, but also for the parallel aim of expanding the role and influence of European higher education in other world regions and zones of influence. Given the role and identity of the EU as a political project, as well as the specific mission that has been assigned to European universities as custodians and carriers of European liberal values, the work of European experts in Indonesia has geopolitical value and significance; it thus allows us to examine the geopolitics of expert knowledge production as a new and complex space of interactions, possibilities and contradictions that calls for a nuanced and careful analytical approach.