Mapping the Higher Education Landscape: Toward a European Classification of Higher Education (review)

Europe is famous for its “unity in diversity,” despite the best efforts of the European Parliament to regulate the far reaches of this expanding empire. These differences are obvious in higher education, and it can be a bewildering experience for academics to work—and students to study—outside their national boundaries. Frans van Vught presents this study as Volume 28 of Higher Education Dynamics and has coordinated contributions from 14 European authors in 10 chapters that trace the need for, the development of, and application of the classification system.

The term “classification” is useful and conveys the sense of the project, which was to help people select universities for several purposes from a diverse sector without being judgmental. This approach is in contrast to the modern obsession—manifest in its most extreme form in the United Kingdom (UK)—of rating universities and producing league tables. This league table mentality is now international with annual tables published from various sources purporting to be able to rate a leading-edge heavily subsidised institution in Mainland China alongside a struggling, poorly financed European institution. Some information is gained but much is lost by such an approach.

The editor presents the first chapter and coauthors the second with Jeroen Huisman. These address, respectively, the diversity of higher education per se and the diversity in Europe specifically. Universities differ according to their internal organization, historical roots and programs (internal diversity), and in terms of reputation and the environments they function in (external diversity). The theoretical framework for the analysis of diversity is Darwinian; universities diversify to “inhabit” the niche environment presented by external circumstances. This analogy is reasonable but limited—reasonable as there is considerable evidence for diversity and also adaptation of universities; but limited as, to date, no European universities have become extinct.

In Europe, the Bologna Process is designed to bring some order to providing undergraduate education and teaching postgraduate education. Like most European initiatives, the Bologna Process is embraced across mainland Europe but barely considered in the United Kingdom. Dirk van Damme considers the issue of transparency associated with the Bologna Process in Chapter 3.

The basis of the classification system is introduced by Jeroen Bartelse and van Vught. Academic rigor is addressed through the use of empirical data in a multidimensional system, a process explained further by Marik van de Wende and Don Westerheijden. Their chapter addresses some concerns about league table ratings which, while based on several indicators, consist of unidimensional ratings and subjective data. The proposed outcome of the Van de Wende/Westerheijden application is spider plots, which offer the prospective consumer of the universities’ products a range of parameters by which to compare them.

However, a potential weakness in these profiles is that consumers (students, potential staff, and research funders) are usually interested in only one aspect of a university’s success, and these profiles may not easily be applied in decision making. Also, they depend on empirical data, which is a valiant attempt at objectivity. However, with the exception of the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) in the United Kingdom, there is no equivalent organization across Europe. Therefore, data may not necessarily be comparable between countries.

Van Vught and Frans Kaiser explain how the classification system was designed, the consideration given to legitimacy, validity, and feasibility, and the process employed (case studies and the pilot study). Then the classification survey method and results in terms of participation are presented prior to some examples of how the data can be used. The authors provide examples of size and graduate intensity; however, it should be noted that, though attempting to design a multidimensional assessment, they present only single dimensions.

Making sense of multidimensional data is not really addressed in a way that helps consumers combine dimensions in making their decision. For example, what does it mean if a university is “very research intensive,” as evidenced...