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International collaboration in higher education and research is considered crucial for economic growth and development. The policy pursued for international research collaboration depends on conditions in other geographical regions and countries, such as trade interests, conflicts, security, and pandemics, hence the term geopolitics. These conditions can be expected to have a major impact on how relationships and cooperation patterns develop. The handling of these issues is discussed in this chapter in the framework of the European policy context as well as through empirical examples regarding the dependence of international recruitment of researchers in two Scandinavian countries, Denmark and Norway. The chapter points to the possible barriers current geopolitical challenges may have for the realization of European as well as national policies for internationalization in higher education. Inequalities depending on gender, career stage, country of birth and other factors have intensified during the pandemic and academic autonomy and freedom of individual researchers and scientific communities are at stake due to a geopolitical situation, which entails increased control with knowledge transfer and research collaboration across national borders. These developments require more complex, targeted safeguarding and policies to protect collaboration in higher education and research.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the public‐private linkage within the Danish research and technological development (RTD) and innovation system, seen from the point of view of the private sector. The relationship between public and private research is an issue of growing interest to management and public policy.

Based on interviews with business managers, the article identifies obstacles that enterprises experience when cooperating with public research institutions and highlights conditions that influence the relationship.

The paper points to ways to strengthen linkages and provides information on how to further stimulate public‐private interaction and thus make better use of resources through synergy.

The analysis in the paper offers an insight that can serve as a reference for researchers, managers and policymakers in countries with conditions similar to those of the Danish.

This chapter discusses the relevance of a community of practice (CoP) for a reflexive gender equality policy and reflects on the different approaches taken within TARGET. It is based on the literature on CoPs and structural change as well as on experiences in transferring this approach to the context of implementing gender equality plans (GEPs) within different types of research organisations. While the notion of the CoP was coined in the 1990s, literature on gender and such communities remained scarce until a recent wealth of research looked at the role played by inter-institutional CoPs in advancing structural change in research organisations. In this chapter, we examine whether and how an institutional CoP approach has been a useful vehicle for gender equality plan development and how the different configurations of internal and external stakeholders within the CoPs have impacted GEP implementation.

Universities are large, complex and highly hierarchical organisations with deeply engrained gendered values, norms and practices. This chapter reflects on the experiences of two universities in initiating structural change towards gender equality as supported by the TARGET project. A common aspect thereby is the lack of a national policy in higher education and research providing specific support for implementing gender equality policies. The process of audit, design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of the first gender equality plan (GEP) in each of these universities was conceived as a first step in a long journey, providing a framework for engaging different institutional actors and fostering reflexive, evidence-based policy making. The analysis deals with reflexivity and resistance and seeks to draw lessons from bottom-up and top-down experiences of GEP implementation. It is the result of shared reflection between the GEP ‘implementers’ in the two universities and the team who provided support and acted as ‘critical friends’.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss how funding systems influence higher education institutions and their strategies and core tasks.

Taking the results of a comparative study between Denmark, Norway and Portugal as a point of departure, the paper identifies and analyses the main features of these state funding systems, their strengths and weaknesses, and their impact on academia.

The system‐level analysis offers an illustration of a trend across Europe. The paper shows that mixed funding models have been implemented in all three countries.

Funding systems and their impacts do not come in neat packages. The systems demonstrate a mixed pattern of strengths and weaknesses. The impacts of the funding systems converge, although different mechanisms are employed. There are no clear cut differences in the perceived strengths, weaknesses and impacts of the two main types of funding systems – input‐based funding and output‐based funding – presented and discussed in the paper.

Gender equality plans (GEPs) are currently the preferred approach to initiate structural change towards gender equality in research organisations. In order to achieve structural change, GEPs have to be more than just a formally adopted institutional policy. Effective GEPs lead to a transformation of gendered practices and thus to structural change. This chapter presents the innovative approach developed for an H2020 structural change project and its theoretical background. We argue that due to the dual logic, which characterises academic organisations, the organisational logic and the academic logic, change is a complex endeavour. To deal with this complexity, one of the main functions of a GEP is to provide space and initiate reflexivity at an individual as well as at an institutional level. A theory of change approach supports reflexivity in all stages of a GEP as it ensures that basic assumptions of the institutional change process are questioned and reflected on by the different stakeholder groups involved in the implementation.

Over the past 20 years, the European Union has developed a comprehensive policy on gender equality (GE) in the fields of research, innovation and higher education. While North European countries have actively implemented policies in this direction, South and East European countries have been far less active and made limited progress, resulting in widening policy gaps across countries. Drawing from the experience of a capacity-building project (TARGET), this chapter explores the factors that impede the implementation of gender equality plans (GEPs) in research and higher education institutions across five countries – Greece, Cyprus, Romania, Italy and Serbia. It argues that the lack of a coherent GE discourse in research and innovation policies that sheds light on structural barriers and implicit bias is a central impediment: it severely limits the potential of GEPs and the power of change agents in research and higher education organisations in Southeast Europe to stimulate institutional change.

Research-funding organisations (RFOs) and research-performing organisations (RPOs) are in a privileged position to significantly reshape the research and innovation landscape – not only by implementing gender equality plans (GEPs) as institutions but also in terms of the relationship and potential impact of these plans on the institutional context in which they are embedded. This paper reflects on the content and methodology of the GEP implementation at two RFOs and one non-university RPOs. Grounded in the knowledge base of each organisation, the analysis provides insights and expert feedback in order to understand to what extent and under which conditions GEPs are a systematic and comprehensive policy in promoting structural change that has a high potential impact on research policy definition and funding. Reviewing the internal assessment phase, the preliminary steps in the design process as well as the implementation and monitoring phase, the analysis detects both the strengths and challenges or resistance connected to external and internal factors as well as the specific strategies that small organisations employ to promote and sustain organisational and cultural change.