The massive global expansion of private higher education (PHE) over recent decades, which cannot be fully explained by demographic or macroeconomic developments, has attracted growing scholarly attention. As shown by Elizabeth Buckner (2017), cross-national patterns of institutional foundings indicate structural and policy drivers behind private sector growth. Within Europe, expansion has also occurred in systems traditionally characterised by strong public funding and low or no tuition fees, such as Germany and Poland. In Poland, nearly one third of students are enrolled in private institutions, while in Germany the share has steadily increased to around 15%. Against this background, this article asks: What are the similarities and differences between the quality assurance systems of private higher education institutions in Germany and Poland?

Theoretically, the study builds on typologies of private higher education developed by Daniel C. Levy (2011), who distinguishes between identity institutions, elite and semi-elite institutions, demand-absorbing institutions, and for-profit global education businesses. These categories help to situate the private sectors in both countries. In Poland, the rapid expansion of the 1990s created a large demand-absorbing segment, while Germany’s private sector is smaller and more niche-oriented, often comprising universities of applied sciences focused on labour-market relevance. The analysis also draws on the European normative framework provided by the European Higher Education Area (EHEA) and its Standards and Guidelines for Quality Assurance (ESG), which apply to all higher education institutions regardless of ownership status. From a governance perspective, quality assurance is conceptualised not only as a control mechanism but also as a trust-building and transformative instrument, echoing arguments by Don F. Westerheijden and colleagues (2007) that accreditation enhances public confidence in higher education systems.

Methodologically, the study employs a qualitative comparative case study design. It analyses legal frameworks, policy documents, statistical data, and selected scholarly contributions on quality assurance in both countries. The comparison is structured along three analytical dimensions: (1) sectoral characteristics and growth trajectories; (2) quality assurance architecture and procedures; and (3) the broader tradition of state supervision and control.

The findings show both convergence and divergence. In Germany, private higher education institutions must obtain state recognition from the respective Land. A positive institutional accreditation recommendation from the Wissenschaftsrat is a precondition for such recognition. Institutional accreditation entails a comprehensive evaluation of academic quality, staffing, governance, financial sustainability, and infrastructure. In addition, individual degree programmes must undergo programme accreditation by authorised agencies. This dual structure - state recognition combined with institutional and programme accreditation - results in a relatively strong ex ante regulatory framework. Research by Marcus Thomann and Bernd Kleimann (2025) suggests that institutional accreditation also functions as a governance mechanism shaping internal personnel policies and organisational structures within private institutions. Thus, in Germany, quality assurance not only secures formal equivalence between private and public degrees but also influences internal institutional development.

In Poland, quality assurance is formally sector-neutral: public, non-public, and church-affiliated institutions are subject to the same procedures. The central actor is the Polish Accreditation Committee (PKA), established in 2001 in alignment with the Bologna Process. Unlike Germany, Poland has historically focused on programme-level evaluations. Participation in evaluation is not strictly mandatory for all programmes, and evaluations result in opinions; formal authority remains with the minister. Institutional evaluation has only recently been introduced in regulatory terms and is expected to be piloted from 2026/27 onward. Doctoral programmes are evaluated separately by another body, creating a fragmented quality assurance landscape.

Overall, the comparison reveals a paradox. While Poland has a much larger private sector and experienced a rapid massification process, its quality assurance system has historically emphasised programme-level enhancement with indirect regulatory consequences. Germany, despite its smaller private sector, applies a more comprehensive and binding institutional accreditation model closely tied to state recognition. Both systems operate within the common ESG framework and treat private and public institutions formally alike. Yet they reflect different governance traditions: Germany combines strong state oversight with corporatist evaluation structures, whereas Poland’s post-socialist transformation moved from direct state control toward a model of supervised autonomy mediated by a central accreditation body.

The study concludes that private sector expansion does not automatically lead to uniform regulatory responses. Instead, quality assurance arrangements are embedded in national governance traditions, historical trajectories, and institutional configurations.

In an era of declining public trust and increasing accountability demands, higher education institutions are introducing digital performance management tools as part of new evaluation regimes (Welpe et al., 2020; Leišytė, 2022). This study investigates the implementation of digitalized academic performance appraisal systems in German public research universities. It asks three questions: How are these systems linked to their institutional contexts? How do these contexts shape their design and use? And how do the systems, in turn, affect the way assistant professors experience performance evaluation?

Theoretically, the analysis is framed by an integration of the performance management model of Bouckaert and Halligan (2008) with neo-institutional theory (DiMaggio & Powell, 1983). This combined lens allows for a systematic examination of the inputs, activities, and outputs of digital appraisal systems, while simultaneously analyzing the coercive, mimetic, and normative pressures that drive their adoption and adaptation within specific university settings.

Methodologically, the research employs a comparative qualitative case study design within the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, a critical case of pronounced new managerialist governance (Hüther, 2011). Data collection includes documentary analysis of university policies and digitalization strategies, as well as semi-structured interviews with administrative leaders and junior professors (Yin, 2018). The study traces how formal designs are translated into practice and how they are perceived by those subject to them.

Preliminary findings, based on analysis of policy documents and early interviews, suggest a gap between the stated purpose of these systems—often described as tools for transparency and feedback—and their experienced function as mechanisms for monitoring and accountability. The extent of this gap appears to vary with institutional characteristics such as digital maturity and strategic autonomy.

By examining how digital appraisal systems are constructed and enacted across different university contexts, this study contributes to ongoing discussions about the changing nature of academic work and evaluation. It provides empirical insights into how junior academics—those most affected by these new evaluation regimes—navigate and make sense of performance expectations in an increasingly digitalized environment.

This paper examines the efficiency of public spending in European higher education systems over the period 2000–2020, focusing on how public financial resources are translated into educational, research, and labour-market outcomes. The study constructs a newly harmonized cross-country panel dataset, combining information from Eurostat, OECD, World Bank, and Scopus, which enables a comprehensive and consistent representation of higher education inputs and outputs across European countries and over time. The empirical analysis employs an efficiency-oriented framework that enables cross-country comparisons and the assessment of performance changes over a long time horizon. Preliminary results point to substantial variation in efficiency levels and trajectories across countries, suggesting that increases in public expenditure alone are insufficient to guarantee better higher education outcomes. Institutional arrangements, governance structures, and strategic allocation of resources appear to play a crucial role in shaping the effectiveness of public investment. The paper aims to contribute to the ongoing debate on higher education funding by providing long-run comparative evidence with direct implications for European policy design.