Higher Education Research is one of the focus areas of Utrecht University. In order to analyse and discover the potential for further development, the project ‘Mapping Utrecht University's field of Higher Education Research’ will be undertaken. The project aims are to create an overview of established and emerging research initiatives, and analyse areas for growth, and opportunities for cooperation. 

The mapping exercise will cover all higher education research at UU faculties and centres, as well as (central level) institutional research. It will be looking at publications, PhD projects, UU data collections, funding sources, and external partnerships.  

The thematic reach of the exercise will be guided by the international and state-of-the-art understanding of the HER field. It will thus focus on micro (teaching and learning), meso (organisational), and macro (system) levels, and include contributions from a broad range of disciplines, including interdisciplinary approaches (see Figure 1.1. Higher education research: Mapping the field in Huisman & van der Wende 2022). The methodological approach will be based on recent publications in this area (Danekindt & Huisman, 2020; Kolster, Westerheijden & Vossensteyn, 2018; Tight, 2019).

• Prof. dr. Manon Kluijtmans
• prof. dr. Susan te Pas

The project aims to explore and explain the differences in the perception and implementation of internationalisation as manifest in the academic disciplines and 
professional fields, as a way to improve our understanding of internationalization and to better inform institutional policy.

To this end, a refined (new) conceptual model is being developed to be explored and tested in a range of disciplinary and professional fields

• prof. dr. Marijk van der Wende