CEHEC 2016

2nd Central European Higher Education Cooperation (CEHEC) Conference
Distinctiveness of Central and Eastern European Higher Education


June 16-17, 2016
Budapest, Hungary


Current news
Video about the Jonathan Cole’s Book Launch and Marek Kwiek’s presentation
A recorded video on the Book Launch as well as a short account is available (provided by CEU). The report can be found here, while the video is embedded. Marek Kwiek’s presentation on the growing social stratification in European Universities is also available at the Keynote speakers & presentations section. Other keynote presentation will be uploaded soon.

Photos and preseantations are available
Parallel session presentations can be found at the Abstracts and Presentations, while keynote speaker presentations are available at the Keynote speakers section. Photos were also uploaded!


The final programme is available
The final programme of the conference can be downloaded. You can find additional practical information regarding travelling and accommodation.

Confirmed speakers  

Jonathan R. Cole (provost and dean emeritus, Columbia University)

Marek Kwiek (director, Center for Public Policy Studies, Faculty of Social Sciences, Poznań University)

Liudvika Leisyte (professor of higher education,  Technical University of Dortmund)

Malcolm Gillies (emeritus professor, Australian National University, Canberra, Australia)

In 2014, CEHEC launched a new series of connferences co-hosted by the Center of International Higher Education Studies (CIHES) at the Corvinus University of Budapest and the Yehuda Elkana Center for Higher Education at Central European University (CEU), in collaboration with partners from the Czech Republic, Poland and Slovakia. Each conference in this series brings together researchers, policy makers, university leaders and other experts in higher education from Central and Eastern European (CEE) region and from other parts of the world. The main aim is to stimulate scholarly and professional dialogue on current trends and key issues in the region’s higher education, as well as promote enhanced collaboration and experience sharing in higher education and science policies. The call invites papers dedicated to the higher education sector in the CEE region, but relevant contributions from other regions are also welcome, including comparative studies.  We expect conceptual, as well as empirical papers. The 2016 CEHEC conference will focus on three themes:

1)    Management and governance

For this theme we invite papers regarding aspects of the relationship between state and institutions, policy implementation practices (at institutional as well as sector level), internal governance and management of higher education institutions –including specific management of specific functions and operations (such as HR, marketing, recruitment, financial operations etc.).

2)    Societal relevance

This theme encourages papers regarding the understanding by various actors of how higher education can be made more relevant to the society, and how to close the gap between theory and practice, including aspects such as: cooperation with the business sector/industry, technology transfer and commercialization,  entrepreneurial universities as well as employability of graduates, pedagogical innovations to incorporate workplace knowledge into the curriculum, human resource policies of institutions to attract, retain and utilize people with work experience, and institutional practices to strengthen the links with local (and also non-local) communities.

3)    Research and development policy in the CEE region and its impact on universities.

Most higher education institutions from the CEE region do not score very high in rankings based on scientific achievements and at the same time underperform in the competition for European Union research grants. This theme focuses on addressing this “lagging behind” this phenomenon by looking into science policies (such as the allocation of resources) as well as institutional settings in the region (e.g. the role of national academies of science vis-à-vis higher education institutions).

The website of the 1st CEHEC conference can be found here.