There are cities and regions within countries and there are countries which are considered centres of civilizational and economic attraction - 'centres,' - and there are places less attractive to non-citizens, considered in the 'peripheries'. Higher education institutions in the centres have natural advantages and a better starting point to internationalise. Namely, centres attract talent and talent in turn attracts more talent. Lacking these natural advantages, institutions in peripheral locations need a deliberate internationalisation strategy. This article highlights the 'gear effect' of an integrated institutional approach to internationalisation, in which international engagements within teaching, research and third mission are reinforced by four cross-cutting internationalisation functions: international institutional cooperation, international profiling, international recruitment and international mobility. (HRK / Abstract übernommen).

While diversity of higher education institutions is in principle almost unanimously viewed as a favorable condition, the mechanisms to achieve it are the source for much contention. Positive financial incentives ("carrots") are proving to be more politically palatable, and hence easier to implement, than negative financial measures ("sticks"). The article describes the case of Slovenia, where the government has proposed positive financial incentives to achieve two goals: to reward excellence, but also to "shape-up" the least successful institutions, and, thus, instigated institutional diversification in Slovenian higher education.

Although student participation in HE governance continues to be a value in Europe, the terms of participation are rapidly changing. The reasons lie broadly in the modernisation agenda for European universities: new public management approach in institutional governance and rising tuition fees. As a result, institutional preference for student participation is changing from decision-making function in governing towards an advisory function in quality assurance and new styles of student engagement in institutional efforts to enhance student experience and in the student centered learning. In other words, while the formal student participation in governing appears to be weakening, the informal student participation is strengthening.

This introductory article deals with higher education (HE) transformations in Central and Eastern Europe in the context of democratization and globalization. The authors first briefly survey the wider canvas of reform since 1989, particularly probing the extent to which the countries of the region may be treated as a distinctive or a cohesive group. Diverging experiences with communism, international organizations and the European Union are highlighted, while attention is also focused on the differing degrees of marketization exhibited by academic systems across the region. Yet, notwithstanding such differences, it is clear that the countries of the region emerge as distinctive 'laboratories of reform', privileged sites for understanding the interplay of external and domestic influences in the reshaping of the HE sector. Drawing on the findings of our contributors, the second part of the article then turns to understanding the domestic mediation of the processes of Europeanization and internationalization, identifying a series of key factors broadly discussed in terms of structures, norms and actors. This special issue thus aims to refine our understanding of HE transformations and internationalization in a post-authoritarian context. It further contributes more generally to debates on Europeanization and policy transfer in the field. (HRK / Abstract übernommen).