Research area of higher education research and science studies

Higher education research and science studies examine the prerequisites, structures and performance processes of tertiary education and research and related activities. This includes, for example, topics such as the promotion of academic success and young academics or entry into the labour market. In addition, it reflects and locates the production, representation and reception of science and the general developments in the science system.

It is thus an interdisciplinary field of research in which higher education institutions and non-university research institutions as well as their actors and social (inter-)effects are scientifically examined. On the one hand, the focus is on the research system, its organization, its specific performance processes (extending into the labor market and other areas of society), and standards. On the other hand, the focus will be on higher education teaching - in particular the design of teaching-learning processes, course contents and the governance structures associated with teaching.

Research topics are for example

  • Educational participation and student research
  • Teaching and learning research, study impact research
  • Graduate and occupational research
  • Professional research
  • institutional, structural and university development research
  • Internationalization
  • Research on higher education planning, organisation and management of the higher education system and on higher education policy
  • Interactions between technology and science
  • Higher education, mobility and admission
  • Relations between teaching, research and curriculum
  • Teaching and learning styles
  • Resource allocation, governance and decision-making processes
  • Interactions between science, society and politics