The Complexity of Policy Mirroring: The Connection between International and Slovenian Higher Education Policy Discourse

The contemporary economic imaginary of the ‘knowledge-based economy’is changing the perception of higher education in Europe. The goals ofhigher education are changing and reform of institutions is predicted. The present article examines these reforms and onceptualisations of higher education by presenting the results of discourse analysis of 47 international policy documents at the European level and two comprehensive national strategies of the Republic of Slovenia for higher education, research and innovation. Based on the analysis of the European documents, the article suggests that two main discourses are constructed: a) ‘the research-based society and economy’, and b) ‘reforming the university’. These present the emergence of a new idea of higher education at the international and national levels. The article investigates the extent to which these discourses are present in Slovenian higher education policy. The findings show that Slovenian discourse hesitates to embrace them fully. In particular, the idea of the managerial university is marginal in Slovenian discourse

Imagining higher education in the European knowledge economy:Discourse and ideas in communications of the EU

The paper focuses on the role of EU institutions in European higher education. Following the outset of the EU Lisbon Strategy (2000), the EU Commission positioned itself as an influential venue for generating, coordinating and communicating discourse on higher education (within the Bologna Process and beyond). Gradually, the scattered ideas converged into a relatively detailed set of policy proposals on the systemic and institutional reforms needed to engage higher education in the regional economic project. The ideas evolved within the imagined knowledge economy. The dominance of this political rationale has resulted in the steady advance of the Europeanisation of higher education, including the incremental tendency to transfer national competencies to supranational arenas - so far limited to soft instruments such as recommendations, guidelines, reporting and common actions

The complexity of policy mirroring: the connection between international and Slovenian higher education policy discourse

Zdajšnji ekonomski imaginarij »ekonomije, ki temelji na znanju«, spreminja percepcijo visokega šolstva v Evropi. Spreminjajo se cilji visokega šolstva in napovedujejo se reforme institucij. V prispevku so analizirane te reforme in konceptualizacija visokega šolstva, tako da predstavimo izsledke diskurzivne analize 47 mednarodnih političnih dokumentov na evropski ravni in dveh celovitih visokošolskih, raziskovalnih in inovacijskih strategij. Na osnovi analize evropskih dokumentov članek nakaže, da sta izoblikovana dva glavna diskurza: a) »družba in ekonomija, ki temeljita na raziskovanju«, in b) »reformiranje univerze«. Diskurza predstavljata pojav nove ideje visokega šolstva na mednarodnih in nacionalnih ravneh. Članek preverja obseg, v katerem sta diskurza prisotna v slovenskih visokošolskih politikah. Izsledki kažejo, da je slovenski diskurz zadržan do tega, da bi ju popolnoma sprejel. Še zlasti ideja menedžerske univerze je v slovenskem diskurzu marginalna.The contemporary economic imaginary of the ‘knowledge-based economy’ is changing the perception of higher education in Europe. The goals of higher education are changing and reform of institutions is predicted. The present article examines these reforms and conceptualisations of higher education by presenting the results of discourse analysis of 47 international policy documents at the European level and two comprehensive national strategies of the Republic of Slovenia for higher education, research and innovation. Based on the analysis of the European documents, the article suggests that two main discourses are constructed: a) ‘the research-based society and economy’, and b) ‘reforming the university’. These present the emergence of a new idea of higher education at the international and national levels. The article investigates the extent to which these discourses are present in Slovenian higher education policy. The findings show that Slovenian discourse hesitates to embrace them fully. In particular, the idea of the managerial university is marginal in Slovenian discourse