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The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between the participation in commercially- and socially-oriented Academics' Societal Engagement (ASE) activities, partnership choices, and funding preferences of academics working in public and private universities from Chile and Turkey. Chile represents a private-dominant higher education system (HES), while Turkey is public-dominant. This article presents the results of an international survey, the Academic Profession in Knowledge-based Society (APIKS), applied to academics from over 20 countries, including Chile and Turkey.

Through a quantitative analysis the authors analyse how the dominant institutional type influences ASE activities, partnership choices, and funding preferences.

Results from the analysis show that being part of a public or private university does not solely explain the activity type that academics engage with. Moreover, the rate of Chilean academics participating in ASE activities is more than twice that of Turkish academics regardless of the public-private distinction.

Further research about the academic life and ASE activities using a qualitative approach can complement this study. Applying further in-depth interviews to obtain more information from external partners can provide different perspectives and help to better understand the ASE activities. Additional analysis could compare external activities by higher education institution (HEI) type regarding vocational/technical centres since the Chilean and Turkish private HEIs included in this study received a mix of public-private funds and are considered not-for-profit, so extending this research to include for-profit private HEIs may be worthwhile for additional comparison.

More support and funding for the development of commercially-oriented ASE activities is recommended for Chile and Turkey's HES. In Turkey, a law-update in 2017 facilitates the establishment of technology transfer offices (TTOs) as companies within universities (Author, 2019). Though it is too early to know its effects, a positive contribution is anticipated. Centred Chile's private dominant HES, it would be appropriate for this type of system to also create different support structures to incentivise socially-oriented external activities and partnership opportunities. As done in other universities, the establishment of a community engagement office may provide professional guidance for partnership creations. Regardless of a country's HE public/private dominance, diverse sources of funding and support mechanisms can also be created to strengthen organisational and financial autonomy facilitating academics' participation in ASE activities. For example, universities can develop institutional policies to support academic establishment, lead or join in administration of non-governmental organisations, or form institutional media to deliver academics' viewpoints of social issues to the larger and non-academic audience. University managers should also empower the connection between academics and industry and business sector through different organisational structures such as Research Office, Science Park Incubators, Career Centre, while guiding and financially supporting academics' research commercialisation by their TTO experience and sources.

The literature has studied the public-private higher education distinction in vast aspects, however, no empirical studies have explored it concerning ASE. Chile and Turkey propose interesting cases since they represent opposite ends considering the public-private predominance of higher education systems. Turkey exhibits a heavy public predominance, whereas Chile has a significantly strong private system.

During the 20th century, the United States rapidly developed its research capacity by fostering a broad base of institutions of higher education led by a small core of highly productive research universities. By the latter half of the century, scientists in a greatly expanded number of universities across the United States published the largest annual number of scholarly publications in STEM+ fields from one nation. This expansion was not a product of some science and higher education centralized plan, rather it flowed from the rise of mass tertiary education in this nation. Despite this unprecedented productivity, some scholars suggested that universities would cease to lead American scientific research. This chapter investigates the ways that the United States’ system of higher education underpinned American science into the 21st century.

The authors present a historical and sociological case study of the development of the United States’ system of higher education and its associated research capacity. The historical and sociological context informs our analysis of data from the SPHERE team dataset, which was compiled from the Thomson Reuters’ Science Citation Index Expanded (SCIE) database.

We argue that American research capacity is a function of the United States’ broad base of thousands of public and broadly accessible institutions of higher education plus its smaller, elite sector of “super” research universities; and that the former serve to culturally support the later. Unlike previous research, we find that American higher education is not decreasing its contributions to the nation’s production of STEM+ scholarship.

The chapter provides empirical analyses, which support previous sociological theory about mass higher education and super research universities.

This chapter explores the trajectories of higher education expansion and its political and social conditions in seven countries, namely China, Japan, Germany, Qatar, South Korea, Taiwan, and the United States of America.

The analysis relies on longitudinal and cross-sectional data gleaned from the World Higher Education Database, UNESCO, and the OECD.

The countries have seen remarkable higher education expansion in the 20th century in terms of enrollments and the foundings of universities, with particularly strong growth in the immediate post-WWII period and since 1990. For the particular case of STEM fields (science, technology, engineering, mathematics), the chapter shows that in those higher education systems in which growth took off relatively late, universities oriented toward the STEM fields are more dominant than in those with a longer history. Countries with a more recent HE system stress technological development more than those that look back on multiple centuries of HE expansion with their canonical legacies.

Comparing these highly dissimilar countries nevertheless reveals important common patterns, and the variable paces of higher education expansion can be explained by national, social, and political factors driving the institutionalization of higher education and research.

Third-party arrangements where a university offers its degrees in collaboration with another institution are not a new phenomenon, particularly when the third-party arrangements occur in the form of a cross-border education (or widely known as transnational education). Drawing on a critical review of the literature available on quality assurance of domestic third-party arrangements and through the use of interviews with the sessional teaching staff, the paper offers theoretical as well as practical views on the domestic third-party arrangement and seeks to inform key stakeholders in the academic management of such collaboration.

The study was undertaken with 40 sessional academics who are involved in teaching postgraduate courses at several third-party education providers and universities with metropolitan campuses in Australia. Focus group interviews were conducted with 8–10 participants in each group. The qualitative study included seven open-ended questions. Each focus group interview was between 45–60 minutes.

The study found 11 universities in Australia offering courses in third-party arrangement with a focus on international students. Online third-party arrangement is also gaining momentum. The study found the following areas that require attention: induction and professional development, quality assurance arrangements, maintenance of standards, adequacy of resources and infrastructure and risk related to academic quality.

Limited study has been conducted on third-party arrangements where a university, usually located far from the city vicinity, works in a collaborative mode with another institution, primarily a private institution, to offer degrees at metropolitan city areas in the same country. Further research is needed with a large number of participants.

The study is undertaken for the first time in Australia. No research has been undertaken on the growth and quality assurance of a third-party arrangement in Australia and other developed countries. The study involves the engagement of the sessional academic staff.

The purpose of this paper is to examine faculty members’ views about the assessment of world-class university components in Iran’s comprehensive universities.

This study adopted a descriptive methodology by using a survey method. The statistical population consisted of 8,548 faculty members of comprehensive universities all over Iran. Considering the large size of the population, the comprehensive universities were categorized into five clusters (North, South, East, West and Center). The authors selected the faculty members from different clusters using Cochran’s formula. A total of 367 faculty members were selected from five clusters. For data gathering, a researcher-designed questionnaire was used. In data analysis, statistical procedures including the Confirmatory Factor Analysis, Kolmogrov-Smirnov test, one-sample t-test, and Friedman test were performed.

The findings of the research showed that except for academic freedom, other components of world-class university in Iran’s comprehensive universities were lower than the mean.

The case study showed how Iran’s comprehensive universities can become world-class universities. The methods of this case study can also be used in other fields.

This study adds to the knowledge of a world-class universities. Therefore to reach a desired level in comprehensive universities’ preparation for converting to a world-class university, it is essential that the policy makers and organizers of Iran’s higher education system pay greater attention to items such as research motivation, research innovation, research budget increase, authority reduction on various university departments, internet bandwidth increase and laboratory facilities increase.

In this chapter, we reflect on how we frame our research on international scholarship programs within the field of comparative and international education and identify perspectives that influence our research. We also briefly describe the theories that shape our research: human capital theory and sociological perspectives that emphasize the centrality of context. We discuss emerging research on international scholarship programs and identify fruitful future directions for comparative and international research on higher education.

The purpose of this paper is to explore parents as “stakeholders” in higher education in England and how they perceive teaching excellence.

The study adopted a qualitative research design using an interpretative approach through which the authors aimed to develop understandings of parents’ perspectives as higher education “stakeholders”. The empirical data were gathered via focus group interviews and an online survey with 24 participants in the UK.

This study found that the majority of parents wished to be treated as an important stakeholder group in higher education. Parent participants perceived that teaching excellence could be evidenced through indicators and measures, for example, the design and delivery of the courses, progress measures, contact hours, speed of return of marked work, graduate employability and so on. They also saw value and significance in the students’ exposure to ideas and perspectives not previously experienced, in zeal and passion in the teaching, and in an academically nurturing, understanding and supportive pedagogical relationship between academic and student.

This study uncovered some apparent tensions, contradictions and challenges for parents as stakeholders in higher education, for example, in reconciling the co-existence of their desire to be involved and engaged with scope for students to be formed as independent young adults. Parents’ desire to measure teaching excellence is also compounded by their concern that excellent teaching is thereby reduced to a box-ticking exercise. This study has implications for higher education institutions wishing to engage parents as a stakeholder group in a meaningful way.

Presidential performance is critical to institutional effectiveness. Therefore, to ensure institutional effectiveness, the board of trustees pays careful attention to the qualifications of individuals hired for the job. To guarantee accountability and commensurate rewards, most boards evaluate their presidents periodically. However, presidential evaluation has a potential to yield negative consequences if poorly conceived and implemented. To reduce the chances of these negative consequences, the goal of this study was to investigate indicators of presidential effectiveness as a basis for shared reasoning among trustees who are charged with the responsibility of hiring, assessing, and compensating college and university presidents. Over 600 trustees in all higher education sections participated in this study. The study shows that: knowledge of higher education; an influence that helps to attract resources; a healthy relationship with key constituents; and effective management skills are important indicators of successful presidents. Some sectoral differences were observed in terms of the significance of indicators of presidential effectiveness. The study concludes with recommendations for presidents, and college and university boards of trustees.

The purpose of this study is to investigate university–industry partnerships in Armenia from the viewpoint of universities. By doing so, it contributes to the existing literature on university–industry collaboration by identifying and addressing the specific challenges that impede the establishment of successful university–industry partnerships in Armenia and other post-Soviet countries.

A comprehensive literature review was conducted to examine the barriers, benefits and institutional, functional framework of collaboration. Additionally, this study used a survey methodology to gather data from faculty managing staff members at six Armenian higher educational institutions on various aspects of university–industry collaboration as well as the perceptions and experiences of the participants.

The results show that the effectiveness and applicability of the university–industry collaboration channels and institutional structures in six higher educational institutions are limited. Specifically, the channels that rely on academic entrepreneurship and innovation were found to be currently unviable. Moreover, the existence of spin-offs and start-ups is notably absent. Furthermore, limited access to funding and inadequate entrepreneurial support systems pose significant barriers to developing university–industry partnerships in Armenian reality.

This study represents a pioneering effort within the context of Armenian higher educational institutions, as it is the first time a survey has been organized to specifically investigate the topic of university–industry partnerships. Before this study, there was a lack of empirical research and data collection on this topic in Armenian higher education settings. Therefore, this research holds significant originality and contributes to filling the existing gap in knowledge regarding university–industry partnerships in Armenia. The research is shedding light on a previously unexplored area and providing a valuable contribution to the field of university–industry collaboration research in Armenia and other post-Soviet countries.