Higher Education and Innovation

This was a European Commison Directorate-General Education and Culture (DG-EAC)-funded project led by London School of Economics (LSE) Associates and Research voor Belied.

The overall aim of the study was to contribute to the better understanding of recent developments affecting higher education and offer evidence on how innovation can support higher education in times of change.

It’s specific objectives were:

  • to analyse existing and identify emerging challenges affecting higher education;
  • to demonstrate the role of innovation in higher education institutions in addressing (these) challenges;
  • to develop recommendations for an innovation framework for higher education.

Its work covered a wide international landscape with the focus equally placed on the developments in the EU, North-America and Asia-Pacific. The focus of analysis were:

  • various participants involved in higher education institutions
  • entrepreneurs, governments, companies and businesses of all types, public bodies, charities and any other relevant stakeholders linked with HEIs

The research overall focused on four main areas of innovation:

  • Technology as a disruptive enabler of new education models
  • New distribution channels and new providers of knowledge and education
  • Global demand for education and internationalisation
  • Bottlenecks to innovation

The work undertaken in Glasgow focused on two particular aspects of innovation:

1/ Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) originated in the EU, specifically Futurelearn, Open HPI and Leuphana Digital School

2/ Internationalisation, specifically the University of Nottingham’s campuses in China and Malaysia

PI and Co-I

Glasgow Co-I: Professor Mike Osborne - University of Glasgow, School of Education

Start and End date

1 February 2013 to 31 January 2014

Funder and Funding amount

EC DG EAC (Glasgow share £18,696)

Related Publications

Brennan, J., Broek, S., Durazzi, N., Kamphuis, B., Ranga, M. and Ryan, S. (2014) Study on innovation in higher education: final report. European Commission Directorate for Education and Training Study on Innovation in Higher Education, Publications Office of the European Union, Luxembourg. ISBN 9789279350818

Cheng, M., Kitigawa, F. and Osborne, M. (2017) The evolution of internationalisation strategy: a case study of the University of Nottingham in China. International Journal of Knowledge-Based Development, 8(3),(doi: 10.1504/IJKBD.2017.10007519)

Cheng, M., Kitagawa, F., Osborne, M. and Duke, C. (2015) Internationalisation as University Business Model Innovation: A Case Study of the University of Nottingham. In: CHER 2015: 28th Annual conference of Consortium of Higher Education Researcher, Lisbon, Portugal, 7-9 Sept 2015.

Osborne, M. , Duke, C., Kitigawa, F.and Cheng, M. (2014) The internationalisation strategy of the University of Nottingham (UK) and the establishment of campuses in Asia. In: Study on Innovation in Higher Education: Annexes. Publications Office of the European Union: Luxembourg, pp. 2-22. ISBN 9789279350825

Osborne, M. and Mayes, T. (2014) EU–originated MOOCs, with focus on multi- and single-institution platforms. In: Study on Innovation in Higher Education: Annexes. Publications Office of the European Union: Luxembourg, pp. 149-201. ISBN 9789279350825