The European higher education sector is a very heterogeneous gathering of national systems. In a rough classification, systems can be divided into unitary systems, which are dominated by universities, and dual systems, where institutions outside the university sector, such as Fachhochschulen (Austria, Germany), Hogescholen (Netherlands), University colleges (Norway) or Polytechnics (Portugal), enrol a considerable share of students.
ETER data allow for the first time for a systematic and European-wide comparison in terms of the types of Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) present in each system and their role for what concerns education and research. Existing classifications of European system in unitary vs. binary can therefore be refined and better grounded empirically (see Figure 1).
At the country level, results show that Universities of Applied Sciences are more widespread in Western (32% of all HEIs) and Northern European (25%) than in Eastern European countries (3%). In countries with dual systems, a large share of education at the bachelor level can be found in institutions, which do not deliver doctoral degrees. In countries with unitary systems, doctorate-awarding institutions enroll the largest part of students. However, even among dual systems, the distribution of students is extremely heterogeneous. In Bulgaria for example, 97% of students are enrolled in universities, while in The Netherlands a high share of higher education is concentrated in UAS (61% of all enrolled students). In Latvia other institutions as academies and private, specialized higher education institutions enroll a larger share of students (34%) than universities and UAS.
At the institutional level, ETER data also display systematic differences between HEI types. On the one hand, universities have a clear mandate for research, while education is the main mission of universities of applied sciences and other institutions: 89% of universities in the ETER dataset are research active, which is also true for 72% of UAS and 33% of other institutions. On the other hand, Universities of applied sciences and other institutions are more likely to be specialized than universities, which are often delivering many subjects at the same time.
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