Conference Description and Themes
In 2014, the Central European Higher Education Cooperation (CEHEC) project launched a new series of annual conferences co-hosted by the Center of International Higher Education Studies (CIHES) at the Corvinus University of Budapest and the Yehuda Elkana Center for Higher Education at Central European University (CEU), in collaboration with partners from the Czech Republic, Poland and Slovakia. Each conference in this series brings together researchers, policy makers, university leaders and other experts in higher education from Central and Eastern European (CEE) region and from other parts of the world. The main aim is to stimulate scholarly and professional dialogue on current trends and key issues in the region’s higher education, as well as to promote enhanced collaboration and experience sharing in higher education and science policies.
The 2016 CEHEC conference focuses on three main themes:
1) Management and governance
This theme will look into topics related to the relationship between the state and institutions, higher education reforms, policy adoption and implementation, the governance and management of universities, models of higher education institutions and students’ organisations and their impact.
2) Societal relevance
Under this theme we will discuss the understanding by various actors of how higher education can be made more relevant to the society, and how to close the gap between theory and practice. The presentations will cover a wide range of topics including university branding, role of university managers in student recruitment, the social effects of massification of higher education, life-long learning programs, skills building for the labour market, student mobility patterns and retention increasing practices.
3) Research and development policy in the CEE region and its impact on universities
Most higher education institutions from the CEE region do not score very high in global rankings based on scientific achievements and at the same time underperform in the competition for European Union research grants. This theme focuses on addressing this “lagging behind” by looking into research and development policies, the development of research cultures, the accreditation framework and the European quality standards.
