• Blank page
• Logo chapter
• Introduction
• Innovativeness of Serbian academic community
• The impact of university prestige on graduate employability
• Implications of the perception of academics of the role and purpose of student engagement in internal quality assurance
• How innovation intermediaries between university and business promote students` start-up in Beijing: Policy and practice
• Merit and student selectin in higher education
• University integration in Slovenia: Tracing the policy trajectory
• The academic profession in Macedonia: Conditions and challenges
• Academics coping with quality: a study of attitudes towards quality assurance in Georgian higher education
• Changing Academic Work in China: Under the Impact of Academic Promotion Policy
• Stakeholder involvment in quality assurance of internationalization at higher education institutions in Austria
• Rationales for the internationalization of higher education: the case of Russia
• How do prevailing national and regional innovation systems affect university contribution and transformation towards building an enterpreneurial university?
• Implementing strategy: The case of Hochschule Osnabrück
• Institutionalisation of quality assurance in an Ethiopian public university
• Indicia of the developmental state concept in the Ethiopian higher education
• Curriculum Europæum
• What Factors Affect German-educated Chinese Master's Students' Decision to Work in Germany?
• Institutional Autonomy in Argentinian Public Universities: The Case of NUC

Introduction

Background information on the creation of the Master thesis reader

Each year a master thesis reader as a summary of the cohort/year is published as an e‐book. Therefore additional to the master thesis each student writes a “special summary” of the thesis, which is an extract of the thesis. This e-book is a collection of summarized master thesis produced as a final and individual research project within master’s course Research and Innovation in Higher Education, leading to graduation from MARIHE program.

The structure and the aims of the summarized master thesis give the insight into the research background, methodology, key findings and recommendations of the each master thesis project.

For further reading the full master thesis texts are available on the following web addresses:

• In the library of Danube University Krems accessible on the following link - http://bit.ly/1erZ17l.

• On the MARIHE web page accessible on the following link - http://www.marihe.eu/insidemarihe/marihe-e-book-series.

• The Reader is published in "EPUB" format, which can be viewed using the (free) software Adobe Digital Editions accessible on the following link: http://www.adobe.com/at/solutions/ebook/digital-editions/download.html.

Introduction of MARIHE program                       

In Europe as well as in other regions of the world fundamental transition processes are taking place in the systems of research, innovation and higher education: from regulation to deregulation and competition, from steering to market, from administration to management. Higher education and research institutions need highly trained experts who are able to analyse these new contexts and who have management and leadership skills to deal with the changes. The Master in Research and Innovation in Higher Education (MARIHE) is an Erasmus Mundus Masters Course offered by a consortium of Danube University Krems (Austria), University of Tampere (Finland), Beijing Normal University (China) and University of Applied Sciences Osnabrück (Germany).

MARIHE provides students a unique opportunity to develop a sound understanding of higher education systems and university development around the world. Students have the opportunity to study in at least three different universities and countries. During an internship provided by international enterprises and organisations they get insight into fields of practice.

As an Erasmus Mundus Masters Course, MARIHE is supported by the Erasmus Mundus Programme of the European Commission. By these standards, it is one of the leading master programmes in Europe. MARIHE addresses university graduates that want to pursue a career in the higher education and research sector as managers, administrators, consultants, policy analysts, researchers and decision makers. Possible employers are higher education and research institutions, public bodies such as ministries for science and education, enterprises specializing in education, think tanks and non-governmental organizations. Graduates of MARIHE are able take the lead in the future management and development of research and innovation in higher education.

 International and European reform agendas have recently focused on a number of measures that are argued to lead to the modernisation of higher education as a sector and turn the higher education institutions into strategic organisational actors to develop countries and societies. The programme supports the development with respect to the professionalisation of institutional leadership and management functions accompanied by an emerging training and support structure for institutional managers and leaders. MARIHE is a cooperation and mobility programme in the field of higher education that aims to enhance the quality of European higher education and to promote dialogue and understanding between people and cultures through cooperation with Third-Countries. In addition, it contributes to the development of human resources and the international cooperation capacity of higher education institutions in Third Countries by increasing mobility between the European Union and these countries.

The curriculum of MARIHE reflects on three perspectives on the change logics involved in the worldwide developments in higher education  and in higher education institutions:

• the perspective on Systems in Transition, focussing on general developments and on globalization and regionalization (Europe, Africa, Americas, Asia) in higher education

• the perspective on System-Institution-Interaction (e.g. funding of research and innovation)

• the perspective on Institutional Change (e.g. “change management”).

Furthermore, modules on Theoretical Background introduce fundamental issues of higher education management. Another emphasis is given to Transferable Skills (e.g. research methods, presentation skills, languages).

For more information on the MARIHE program, please visit the program´s website: www.marihe.eu.