Mapping the European higher education landscape: new insights from the EUMIDA project

"This paper contributes to the current debate on mapping the European higher education landscape (van Vught et al. 2008; Huisman et al. 2007) by providing for the first time a complete census of all higher education institutions in the European Research Area as well as their characterisation based on a number of descriptors and statistical data. Going beyond the core of research-intensive universities as covered by most university rankings (van Raan 2007) it is critical to understand the overall structuring of higher education, the division of tasks between higher education sectors and the spread of the research and educational mission (Kyvik 2009; Lepori 2009). This work significantly extends previous work in the AQUAMETH project for the coverage of the database and the level of standardisation of the collected data (Bonaccorsi and Daraio 2007)."