1. European Tertiary Education Register [Contract No. EAC-2015-0280]
6/18/2018 8:55 AM
European Tertiary Education Register [Contract No. EAC ]
The European Tertiary Education Register
Results on European higher education
Andrea Bonaccorsi
Athens, 16 January 2017
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2. Examples of use Data at the level of individual HEIs
As compared with EUROSTAT national aggregates
Allow providing a fine-grained analysis of HEI characteristics
Diversity of HEIs in terms of size, functions, subject, etc. accross the whole Europe
Differences between countries in this respect (as associated to national policies)
Relative importance of differences between countries and between HEIs in the same country
Statistical inference on HEI characteristics

3. What is higher education?

4. Policy issues History and territorial distribution of HEIs
Do we have too many universities? Are they too dispersed geographically?
Should we have less/ more geographically concentrated universities?
Indicators
Number of HEIs per 000 populations, billion € or $ GDP, km square
Age profile of HEIs
HEI demography (mergers)

5. Distribution of HEIs per year of foundation

6. Types of mergers in ETER
University mergers: critical mass (rare)
College mergers: consolidation of the sector
Specialized schools: achieving critical mass or integrating in generalist schools (take-over)

7. Demography highlights
European higher education is the sum of different historical layers (from the middle-ages to the more recent HEIs) with very different characteristics.
High stability in the core of large universities, frequent change in the “periphery”.
On-going consolidation process mostly for small HEIs, education oriented.
Private HEIs have a more competitive dynamics.
The number of HEIs and the structure of higher education are strongly influenced by history.
Read the policy brief on HEI history published in June 2016.

8. Policy issues Size of HEIs
Are our universities too small? Too large? Do we miss a core of large universities?
Are students concentrated in a small number of institutions? Is this bad or good?
Should we concentrate resources in a small number of institutions?
Indicators
Distribution of size indicators (number of students, degrees, academic staff, total staff)
In total and by categories (universities vs non-universities, by discipline, by generalist vs specialist orientation)
Read the policy brief on HEI size to be published in January 2017.

9. HEIs by size Many small HEIs (private, specialized)
The core of the system is composed by large generalist universities

10. Policy issues Subject mix
Do we have too many students in, say, Law? Do we have too few students in, say, Engineering?
Do we need more specialist universities in dedicated fields?
Indicators
Distribution by Fields of education of students and degrees
% of degrees in selected FoE from generalist vs specialist universities

11. Subject mix highlights
The core of the European higher education landscape, both of education and research, is dominated by generalist institutions.
The emergence of specialized institutions and their patterns differ substantially between countries, depending on specific national conditions.
Specialized institutions especially cover Arts and Humanities, Engineering, Social Sciences and Business and Law.
The main subject of specialized institutions is strongly correlated with the legal status of an institution.
Read the policy brief on subject mix published in June 2016.

12. Geographical distribution of specialized HEIs

13. Policy issues
Differentiation of higher education: (a) degree differentiation
Dual or college systems (Phd granting institutions + non-PhD granting) vs unitary systems
Debate on convergence vs diversity
Indicators
% of students enrolled in non-PhD institutions (e.g. colleges, Fachochschules)
average size of non PhD institutions compared with universities
Analysis by discipline and by regions

14. Policy issues
Differentiation of higher education : (b) research intensity differentiation
Is there a differentiation among universities in the intensity of research activities? Do we need such differentiation?
Indicators
Ratio PhD students/all students (or degrees) as an indicator of research intensity
Average/median number of publications per FTE academic staff

15. PhD intensity by country

16. Policy issues Internationalization
Are our universities good in attracting international students? International academic staff?
Indicators
% of students coming from abroad (undergraduate, postgraduate)
% of academic staff coming from abroad

17. Internationalization of academic staff
Large differences between countries
But also between HEIs within countries

18. Internationalization of student body
Mobility increases strongly by educational level
As well as differences between HEIs
High internationalization at the bachelor and master level is exceptional

19. Internationalization highlights
Permanent and degree mobility at the bachelor level remains concentrated in few HEIs (foreign campuses, foreigners’ HEIs).
Mobility at the master level is concentrated in the UK.
Mobility at the PhD level targets highly reputed countries.
Erasmus students’ mobility is complementary to degree mobility (more focus on the bachelor level, less internationalized countries).
Read the policy brief on internationalization of students to be published in November 2016.

20. Policy issues Funding system
Are our universities too much dependent on government funding? Are they funded with an appropriate funding mix when compared to other countries?
Indicators
% university budget covered by core funding, third parties, and student fees

21. Funding system Most HEIs are mainly financed by the State core budget
Exception of private HEIs (student fees)

22. Policy issues Research productivity of universities
Are our universities productive with respect to scientific publications?
Indicators
Controlling for other factors (subject mix, size, student load)
- Average number of scientific publications per FTE academic staff in relevant fields

23. Policy issues Teaching productivity of universities
Are our universities productive with respect to teaching?
Indicators
Controlling for other factors (subject mix, size, research intensity)
Average number of degrees per FTE academic staff
Completion rates

24. Policy issues Gender gap
Are our universities good in achieving gender balance?
Indicators
% of female students (undergraduate, postgraduate)
% of female academic staff (by academic level, if data available)
Ratio % female staff/% female students
Read the policy brief on gender gap to be published in December 2016.

25. Policy issues Efficiency of universities
Are our universities efficient in producing multiple outputs? How distant are they from the frontier?
Indicators
Nonparametric efficiency scores
Stochastic frontier efficiency scores

26. Policy issues Universities and regional development
Are our universities contributing to growth and regional development?
Indicators
Regional covariates (GDP, gross value added, employment, share of employment in high tech sectors, new firm creation rates, New Technology Based Firms, etc.)
Allocation of covariates to universities according to the NUTS 2 and NUTS 3-level georeferentiation
Urban area geo-referentiation
Read the policy brief on regional development to be published in January 2017.

27. Statistical inference
ETER sample is large enough to allow for statistical inference
Currently mostly cross-sectional
In future also using panel data
Examples
Factors associated with internationalization of HEIs
Factors associated with participations to EU-FPs
Analysis of types of HEIs in Europe
Growth process of HEIs (Gibrat’s law)
ETER (+other data) allow answering some debated questions on European Higher Education

28. References ETER I final report Books
Benedetto Lepori, Andrea Bonaccorsi, Alessandro Daraio, Cinzia Daraio, Hebe Gunnes, Elisabeth Hovdhaugen, Michael Ploder, Monica Scannapieco, Daniel Wagner-Schuster (2016), Establishing a European Tertiary Education Register, European Commission, NC EN-N, Brussels.
Books
Bonaccorsi A. (ed.) 2014, Knowledge, Diversity and Performance in European Higher Education, London, Edward Elgar.
Bonaccorsi A. and Daraio C. (eds., 2007), Universities And Strategic Knowledge Creation, Edward Elgar.

29. Articles
Daraio C. et al. (2011), The European university landscape: a micro characterization based on evidence from the Aquameth project, Research Policy, 40(1).
Lepori B., Bonaccorsi A. (2013), The socio‐political construction of a European census of higher education institutions. Design, methodological and comparability issues, Minerva, 51(3), 271‐293.
Bonaccorsi A., Colombo M.G., Guerini M., Rossi Lamastra C. (2013) University specialization and new firm creation across industries. Small Business Economics DOI /s
Bonaccorsi A., Colombo M.G., Guerini M., Rossi Lamastra C. (2014) The impact of local and external university knowledge on the creation of knowledge-intensive firms: evidence from the Italian case. Small Business Economics, DOI /s
Lepori B., Veglio V., Heller‐Schuh B., Scherngell Th., Barber M. (2015), Participations to European Framework Programs of higher education institutions and their association with organizational characteristics, Scientometrics 105 (3), 2149‐2178.
Lepori B., Seeber M., Bonaccorsi A. (2015), Competition for talent. Country and organizational‐level effects in the internationalization of European Higher Education Institutions, Research Policy, 44(3), 789‐802.
Bonaccorsi A. (2016) Addressing the disenchantment. Universities and regional development. Journal of Economic Policy Reform, online August 2016
Vieira E., Lepori B. (2016) The growth process of higher education institutions and public policies, Journal of Informetrics, 10,
Bonaccorsi A., Haddawy P. Cicero T., Saeed H. (2016a) Explaining the transatlantic gap. Scientometrics, online November 2016

30. Work in progress on additional data
Additional data on publications (Scopus )
Europe, USA and Canada, Asia Pacific
251 Subject Categories
Number of publications
Number of citations
% publications in top 10% SNIP journals
% publications in top 25% SNIP journals
% citations in top 10% SNIP journals
H-index
Number of publications with international co-authorship
Originally available in the Global Research Benchmarking System (GRBS), now terminated

31. (personal addendum) Work in progress
Bonaccorsi A., Secondi L. (2016a) The determinants of research performance in European universities. A large scale multilevel analysis, Submitted for publication
Bonaccorsi A., Haddawy P., Cicero T., Saeed H. (2106b) The solitude of stars. The European model of academic excellence facing the input competition. Submitted for publication
Bonaccorsi A., Secondi L. (2016b) Field of science differences in research performance. In preparation
Bonaccorsi A., Secondi L. (2016c) Are there economies of scale in research? In preparation

32. Work in progress/2
On the relationship between research and growth of firms
Bonaccorsi A., Colombo M.G., Guerini M., Rossi Lamastra C. (2016a) Estimating the impact of public research on the post-entry growth of firms. In preparation
Bonaccorsi A., Colombo M.G., Guerini M., Rossi Lamastra C. (2016b) Quality of research and firm growth. In preparation

33. Questions?