Higher Education and Social Change (EuroHESC)
The programme
The aim of the EUROCORES Programme EuroHESC is to develop and implement a programme of interdisciplinary comparative research into the relationships between higher education and society. This will involve the development of theories and hypotheses about this relationship and the factors which influence it, and will also address methodological issues of comparative research in the field (e.g. data comparability, combination of quantitative and qualitative research, and different levels of analysis).
Furthermore, EuroHESC will explore ways of utilising other social science datasets – for example, the European Social Survey and Eurostudent – in order to situate the study of higher education more firmly within the different social and cultural settings in which higher education occurs. EuroHESC is expected to make a significant contribution to the expansion of capacity in the field of higher education research and to a better integration with related scientific fields.
The programme aims to support high quality multidisciplinary research and is expected to run for 3-4 years; it includes national research funding as well as support for networking and dissemination activities managed by the ESF.
Download the Call for Outline Proposals and the Amendment to Call
Background and Objectives
The Programme is one of the outcomes of (and is strongly influenced by) the recent ESF Forward Look on Higher Education (Higher Education Looking Forward – HELF). The Forward Look sought to examine higher education and research within the wider context of research in the social sciences and other fields, by relating it to more general conceptual frameworks of human capital theory, theories of power, inequality and social exclusion, organisational theory, new public management, etc. In so doing it began to address some of the broader questions concerning the changing relationship between higher education and society and to develop research agendas that are relevant not only to researchers, but also to policy makers and practitioners. Such questions should now be dealt with in more detail in the course of the EuroHESC programme on higher education and social change.
Thus far
The Call for Outline Proposals for Collaborative Research Projects (CRPs) was launched on 13 March 2008 with the participation of 18 national funding agencies. The deadline for submission of Outline Proposals was 15 May 2008. The EuroHESC Review Panel then convened on 12-13 June 2008 in Strasbourg to sift the 21 eligible proposals received. Nine were selected to proceed to the Full Proposal stage. The deadline for submission of Full Proposals is Tuesday, 16 September 2008, 12:00 PM CET (noon).