Three <scp>HEQuarters</scp> of a century: Reflections, considerations, and a research agenda

This autumn 2022, Higher Education Quarterly celebrated its 75th anniversary. Quite a unique event, as HEQ represents one of the oldest journals in the field of higher education research. The first issue was published in 1947, only two years after the end of the second world war. The journal was at that time called ‘Universities Quarterly’ and founded by the ‘Association for Education in Citizenship’, by Lord Simon of Wythenshawe, Mrs. E. Hubback and several others (Notes, Augustus 1949). In 1948, it was clearly stated that in higher education, ‘the problems are infinite, and surely, much hard, clear, prolonged thinking will be necessary if even a few of them are to be solved. To that thinking it is hoped that the University Quarterly has made and will continue to make some stimulating contributions’ (1948, p. 427). And so, we have continued this thinking and have contributed to the various debates, and we will continue to do so. To mark this very special occasion, I have taken a very thorough look through the journal over these 75 years. This was harder than it looks as the earlier issues are not so easy to access. Currently, Higher Education Quarterly is an international, scholarly journal, that occupies a critical space in promoting research into higher education policy and practice internationally. Its scope includes, for instance, institutional approaches to the student experience, management, and leadership; system-wide issues such as student funding and widening participation; and international responses to global market environments. The journal places particular emphasis on comparative material as opposed to single institution or local case studies. The uniqueness of the journal can be found in bringing together issues arising from academic policy and practice and thereby serving a broadly based readership. Given this very interesting and inspiring profile, it is relevant to go back to the roots of the journal. In the very first editorial of the journal Ross (1947), at that time coordinating editor, emphasizes the importance of international collaboration and comparison, as ‘there can be few problems which are unique’ and ‘no one country possesses all the wisdom needed to solve higher education varied problems' (p. 3). Two years later the editors mentioned that ‘only a small fraction of the questions which were listed in the prospectus issued in 1946 have so far been dealt with in these pages (1948, p. 427). Dr. G. M. Trevelyan, O. M., Master of Trinity College writes in 1948 about the mission of the universities, his concerns involve the necessary combination of professional training and citizenship education, occurring both inside and outside universities. When taking a profound look through these very first issues, it is remarkable how constant several themes are in the research of higher education. Several of these tend to be of continuous and substantial relevance, until the present day. For the purpose of this reflective paper, I have selected a few of these more constant themes, and will discuss both their constancy and as well as their volatility throughout the last 75 year. In contrast, I will also remark on several of the most prominent alterations. I will finish this paper with a research agenda for the future, at least for another 25 years. The central themes I have selected for this reflective paper are related to different levels of aggregation: (1) Internationalization, (2) The university in crisis or Crisis at Universities and (3) Student intake and enrolments. Concerning the theme of internationalization, this was placed centrally in the intentions of the journal from the very first beginning of the journal, specifically focused on what the different higher education systems can learn from each other, and how comparison between higher education systems can help us to understand and solve its own problems more profoundly. As early as 1948, University Quarterly, mentioned a preparatory meeting of a forerunner of the OECD. While the journal was in that time still quite UK focused, several studies on a range of European countries are being discussed, for example, a descriptive study on the Belgium and Dutch situation, comparing the universities of Utrecht and Liege, specifically the entrance requirements (Rosenfeld, 1949). Outside Europe, various commonwealth countries are being examined. For example, Medley (1949) discusses the Australian system of higher education and worries for the provision of staff, accommodation and equipment given the rise of student numbers and having to admit everyone with a formal qualification, and not being able to select as is common practice in Britain and the United States. However, the United States remains the most prominent example of a ‘good practice’. The November issue of 1948 is nearly completely devoted to ‘higher education in the United States, a Symposium’. Quite unique about the American system of education it that it is based on ‘the genius of the republic, a system that is universal and republican instead of aristocratic and monarchical’ (Kandel, 1948, p. 436). Emphasizing that education should not be ‘an instrument for producing an intellectual elite, but the means by which every citizen, youth, and adult is enabled and encouraged to carry his education, formal and informal, as far as his native capacities permit’ (Kandel, 1948). A range of papers is devoted to the various aspects of the American system of Higher education, e.g., the organization and administration (Brown, 1948), its aims and purposes (Snaveley, 1948) and its graduate system (Keniston, 1948). A few years later, Prof Humphrey Humphreys describes his experiences when visiting some Latin-American Universities, in Chile and Argentine, in 1954. Internationalization continues to be one of the most prominent themes within HEQ, see for example Bourke (2002) on the case of medical education, a study on the small firm approach (Sugden, 2004), or on Global Citizenship, which is being discussed by Haigh (2014). Currently, HEQ publishes research from all over the world, including Africa, the far east, including countries such as China, Japan, South-Korea, and many others. More recently we find studies from the middle east, such as Iran (Fereidouni et al., 2015) about female empowerment in Iran, or eastern European, such as Georgia (Kobakhidze & Samniashvili, 2022). Our editorial board is equally international with a 25 people from 18 countries, from 5 continents, very diverse in terms of gender, ethnicity, length of experience and research focus. As early as 1949, the issue of crises at universities, or ‘universities in crisis’ is being discussed in Universities Quarterly. ‘The most striking thing about the crisis’ in the universities is that is has blown up so suddenly. Until yesterday, almost, if might have seemed that universities were enjoying the sunshine of public favour; indeed, it seemed a dangerously common conviction that they had the key to many of the urgent problems of our age’ (1949, p. 15). The authors explain that for problems concerning the medical sector, teaching training, industrial technicians' … ‘the answers seemed to be sought from the universities'. (Editorial Notes, 1949, p. 15). Remarkable, the publication of the book ‘The crisis in the University’ by Sir Walter Moberly, a result of a ‘long series of discussions by a group of Christian university dons and others’ (p. 633), initiated by the distribution of 12 pamphlets on university problems about 18 months before. The authors are hoping for fresh and vigour thinking on the fundamentals of university education, especially since the ‘crisis in the universities is given the keenest attention in the public press’ (1948). In the November 1949 a special issue concerning this book was published. Lord Simon of Wythenshawe, with allegedly nearly fifty years of experience in industry, who hired about 50 university graduates since the war, warmly welcomes this book. He considers Sir Walter as ‘the greatest living authority on the varied aspects of university work’ (1949, p. 73) as he raises problems of the most fundamental importance, that are of urgent importance and should be fully discussed, and ‘that the universities ought to play a far more important part in this great debate than they do to-day’ (1949, p. 73). Interestingly, Lord Simon already distinguishes between the minor crises (e.g., staffing, inadequacy of accommodation and equipment), which are being dealt with and the major crisis, which he considers as the ‘crisis in the civilization of the wester democracies’, and the part universities should and could play in that, a distinction which remains relevant up to now. When reflecting on this post-war crisis, we see some interesting parallels between the recent COVID-19 crisis. Seventy-five years later, in 2022, we are also reflecting on a worldwide crisis, and of course, HEQ is one of the first and most prominent to devote a special issue to the ‘Internationalization of higher education in a post-pandemic world: Challenges and responses’, edited by Huang et al., 2022. In order to respond to the questions raised by the crisis, typical case countries and HE systems from almost all regions and continents are selected for this Special Issue. They include the European region, Australia, China, Hong Kong, Japan, Russia, the UK, North America, and an institutional case from Latin America. A third issue, which is more relevant at institutional level concerns the student intake, about whether universities should be willing to grow, and being able to select their students, or whether only a threshold level of requirements should be sufficient. As early as 1948, for example Vowles (1948) discusses the link between student intake and the economic situation. At that time, university grants had been increased and a committee of Vice-Chancellors and Principles, exchanged ideas at the Commonwealth and International Universities Conferences, with a special inspiration from President Truman's Commission on Higher Education, from the United States. In this context, McConnell (1949), dean at the college of science, University of Minnesota, US, shares his reflections of a visit of 12 British Universities, for a period of 3.5 months altogether. He has great admiration for how the ‘British universities have met the difficulties and new responsibilities of the postwar period’ and that is it possible for ‘the ablest students to reach the university regardless of social position or financial means’ (p. 656). Interestingly, this implies that social diversity is already in the picture, whereas other types of diversity (e.g., gender, ethnicity) entered the discussions at a later stage. Much later, in 1961 Lord Hailsham, minister of education, makes a pledge for new and larger universities but also states that the government needs not to provide such a system. The issue of student enrolment continued to be discussed in HEQ up to this year, and the issues of selectivity and accessibility continue to be part of the relevant discussions. For example, Buckner et al. (2022) discovered that international student enrolment in the US and Canada has only been altered by COVID-19 to a limited extent, whereas selective institutions were less affected than the access-oriented ones. However, of course, we see a great many differences between ‘Universities Quarterly’ and the current journal of Higher Education Quarterly. I will mention a few of the most relevant. The type of publications has changed substantially, while in the earlier years, many reflective papers were being published rather than actual scientific research. These involved often personal experiences, or descriptions of a visit abroad, sometimes from a rather western-focussed perspective, but always very informative. For example, John Rex's report of his visit to South Africa in 1954, explaining the nature of ‘Apartheid’ at the universities. Also, occasionally, the journal had commissioned a few studies, for example concerning the administration of universities. Currently we see large variety of papers being published in HEQ, both empirical and review studies. Despite being united in their critical focus on higher education systems, each of the papers provides a new perspective and additional coverage or inspiration for certain knowledge gaps, which have particularly intrigued us in the current global crisis. For example, a recent issue of HEQ (Teelken & Fumasoli, 2021) combines a range of international perspectives, covering seven countries (South Korea, UK, Ireland, Germany, India, South Africa, Canada) and four continents. Other sources of variety are created by the multi-disciplinarity (including financial, legislative, business, organizational, social psychological perspectives) of the papers. And even more interesting is the variety of methodological approaches, combining traditional research methods (surveys and interviews) with more novel forms of collecting data such as focus groups, content analysis, experiments, critical literature review, secondary analysis. The authors in these earlier years are generally dominated by males, many of them with aristocratic titles, and generally of a rather elite background, deans, rectors and ‘headmasters’. Currently a large diversity of authors publishes in HEQ, with all kinds of backgrounds and from nations all over the world. Another, huge difference, is of course caused by all the ICT and other communication options, all the electronic devices, making quick and flexible communication possible. Higher Education Quarterly is a key journal in higher education policy and management studies with a long history and impact on an international basis. The journal has attracted contributions from and the attention of leading researchers in the higher education field for many years… Distribution of authorship by geographic location provides evidence that HEQ is a more international journal than many others that currently enjoy an ISI ranking. My field is HE policy analysis and strategic leadership and organisation of universities. HEQ gives the best coverage linking those two areas: the interaction between system context and internal strategy and organisation. There are other journals that do some of this, but most do not offer consistent coverage and quality… HEQ has, in my view, a more consistent focus and its independence allows a more disinterested reviewing approach, and thus, a higher standard. HEQ has a significant role as a journal utilized by managers and other practitioners of higher education, as well as research-scholars. This should not detract from its standing as now one of the key scholarly journals in higher education studies, in relation to both empirical studies and conceptual innovations. In the time I have been associated with the journal the flow of incoming papers has risen dramatically in both quantity and quality terms and correspondingly, the peer review process has become increasingly rigorous. HEQ's status within the profession is already established, and has proved particularly attractive to authors wanting relatively early exposure of new work in the rapidly evolving fields of higher education policy and practice. That said, the standard of peer review is uncompromisingly high and publication within it is regarded with pride.

Fetched live from OpenAlex and de-inverted. Abstracts are not stored in this database: the inverted indexes are 8.6 GB of the frame’s 9.3 GB of text, and the host has 13 GB free.