Hochschuldidaktik und Hochschulforschung
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Item Higher education policies and interdisciplinarity in Germany(2023-01-04) Leišytė, Liudvika; Rose, Anna-Lena; Sterk-Zeeman, NadineUniversities have increasingly been subjected to policy- and industry demands to produce multi- and interdisciplinary knowledge. This paper explores the extent to which different higher education policy instruments are used to promote interdisciplinarity in teaching and research at universities in the German higher education system comparing them across different federal states. Based on a manifest content analysis of higher education laws and performance agreements with universities in the 16 German states, we were able to distinguish between three types of states: Those a) with a general use of policy instruments aimed at all universities in a state, whereas considerable differences could be observed with regard to the degree of coercion (enabling versus prescriptive provisions) and scope (teaching or research), b) a directed use of policy instrument, targeting specific universities, and c) a hybrid use of policy instruments using both general and directed elements. This paper provides a novel mapping of the promotion of interdisciplinarity in German higher education policies through a variety of policy instruments and hereby contributes to the extant literature on interdisciplinarity in higher education.Item Study program innovation in the Triple Helix context: the case of cooperative study programs at a German university of applied sciences(2020-03-05) Schiller, Benjamin; Leišytė, LiudvikaThe purpose of this article is to understand how Triple Helix linkages foster study program innovation at the micro-level and how the entrepreneurial university shapes support structures and processes to foster this innovation at the meso-level. We draw on the case of cooperative study programs from a German university of applied sciences. We selected business administration and nursing as two different disciplinary examples. Cooperative study programs are delivered partly at university and partly in industry and illustrate the hybridity that shapes the knowledge transfer at a university. Our study draws on semi-structured interviews with professors, industry representatives, students and policy makers as well as on pertinent documents. Our data show that Triple-Helix interactions generate program innovations and, depending on the discipline, have a focus on a Double Helix. In addition, the study shows the processes and their limitations by which teaching is transferred in partnership with industry in the entrepreneurial university context.Item Translating student diversity(2021) Mergner, Julia; Leisyte, Liudvika; Wilkesmann, UweThe dissertation examines how German universities respond to student diversity in the context of the widening participation agenda and how variations in organizational responses can be explained. As a theoretical framework, the study builds on Scandinavian institutionalism (Czarniawska & Joerges, 1996) that seeks to understand how organizations interpret institutional pressures and how these interpretations affect their daily organizational practices (Boxenbaum & Strangaard Pedersen, 2009; Sahlin & Wedlin, 2008). The study chooses the QPL funding program as one concrete example for a soft steering instrument within the widening participation agenda. To account for local variations, this study builds on a multiple case study design including three universities that participated in the QPL funding program and differ in type of institution, location and institutional profile. Data sources from the three case study universities include publicly accessible text materials, semi-structured interviews, group discussions and protocols from participatory observations. The processes of data collection and analysis were guided by strategies of grounded theory (Glaser & Strauss, 1967). The findings indicate how diversely universities interpreted the idea of student diversity in the context of the QPL initiative. Here the study explores not only how universities translate the institutional demand rhetorically or make ceremonial decisions, but also how these translations affect their daily routines and activities of teaching and studying. In addition, the results support theoretical assumptions that the act of interpretation is guided by institutional beliefs and norms that derive from the local context (Boxenbaum & Jonsson, 2008). The study identified institutional characteristics and dominant diversity paradigms as explanatory factors for local variations. Finally, in accordance with Scandinavian institutionalism, the study pays special attention to how the idea of student diversity is materialized on the level of concrete actions at German universities. Using the coding paradigm (Corbin & Strauss, 1990), the study identified seven organizational practices to deal with student diversity that differ not only in their definitions of student diversity but also in terms of the contextual conditions in which they appear.Item The widening participation agenda in German higher education: discourses and legitimizing strategies(2019-01-10) Mergner, Julia; Leisyte, Liudvika; Bosse, ElkeAlthough participation in higher education (HE) has expanded in Europe, social inequalities remain a major political challenge. As HE expansion has not led to equal access and success, the mechanisms behind policies seeking to reduce inequalities need to be examined. Focusing on the widening participation agenda, this article investigates how universities translate political demands to their local contexts. The translation perspective is adopted to study the German HE system as an example characterized by high social exclusion. Based on policy document analysis, the study first explores the rationales underlying the discourse on widening participation. Second, a multiple case study design is used to investigate the organizational responses to the demand of widening participation. The findings indicate that the political discourse is dominated by two perspectives that regard widening participation as either a means to bring about social justice or to ensure a reliable pool of skilled labor. The study further reveals that different legitimizing strategies serve to link the policy of widening participation to local contexts. This study contributes to research on social inequalities in HE by introducing a translation perspective that permits analysis at both macro and organizational levels, while acknowledging institutional variations in organizational responses to political demands.Item Academic institutional entrepreneurs in Germany: navigating and shaping multi-level research commercialization governance(2018-12-18) Leisyte, Liudvika; Sigl, LisaIn this article, we aim to explore the agency of scientific entrepreneurs and research managers in shaping their Triple Helix contexts. Drawing on institutional documents and in-depth interviews with research managers and scientists in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia, the study shows that trust in scientific entrepreneurs from research managers, their scientific standing and leadership, and type of academic entrepreneurship are central in shaping the Triple Helix relationships. Research managers frame themselves as passive service-providers for scientists’ commercialization activities while scientists see them as facilitating creative employment arrangements. Research managers perceive scientists as self-motivated highly creative risk-takers. The studied scientific entrepreneurs negotiate their institutional arrangements and find flexible solutions for the structural barriers within their research organisations. At the same time, they tend to avoid taking personal risks when it comes to contractual arrangements and their careers. The study identifies two types of agency exerted to shape the Triple Helix context—bricolage and institutional entrepreneurship. Bricolage activities and the trust of research managers in the leadership and autonomy of scientific entrepreneurs prepare the basis for institutional change. This can be the ground for institutional entrepreneurship to take place and reshape the Triple Helix relationships in the particular context.