Conference Agenda

Introduction

This symposium explores the power and influence of networks in European higher education policymaking, focusing on the use and production of knowledge. Presentations examine the higher education policy actor network in the EU context with an empirical focus on preparatory policymaking venues and their day-to-day policy work in the EU and Finland. The study is grounded on original research data collected through network analysis, interviews, and observations. The symposium draws on a recently published book and articles.

The symposium’s guiding aim is to analyse the role of networks in generating knowledge and power in and for European policymaking. It shows the embeddedness of national higher education policymaking in European structures. Presentations reflect on the conventional idea that the EU’s legal competences are the foundation of higher education policymaking and which may obscure policymakers’ understanding of the EU’s power and policy sectors’ blurred boundaries. They also discuss how to theorise the interdependence of knowledge and policy within the institutional tensions and pressures.

European context

Previous research has studied European policy in connection with higher education from various perspectives underscoring higher education reforms (e.g. Bleiklie et al., 2017) and their national variations (Jungblut & Dobbins, 2023), finances and funding (e.g. Kivistö & Suprun, 2024), and accessibility (e.g. Weedon & Riddell, 2016), for example. Researchers from different fields have been interested in explaining higher education institutions’ role as drivers of the knowledge economy and boosting European economic growth (e.g. Birtwistle & Wagenaar, 2020) and focused on the processes of higher education governance (e.g. Kanniainen & Pekkola, 2023), and higher education students (e.g. Brooks & Abrahams 2020). However, less attention has been paid to the preparatory venues of higher education policymaking that operate within national and EU policymaking structures. The presentations focus on the main actors of EU policymaking. They zoom into European Parliament’s committee on Education and Culture (CULT), Finnish ministerial working groups and sub-committees dealing with EU-related higher education policies, as well as policymakers’ understanding on knowledge and power. In sum, this symposium seeks to understand the actors, scenes, and locations of higher education policy and their relationship with knowledge and power.

Preparatory venues, power and knowledge

‘Knowledge’ formulated for policymaking takes shape in an environment, where different sources of knowledge are connected through networks, and reshaped through power. This underlines the importance of studying networks and is identified in education policy research (e.g. Karseth & Sivesind, 2022). The increased interest in networks has also been seen in the steady flow of literature on social network analysis in education policy (Kallunki et al., 2025). Networks tie knowledge and power to policymaking, highlighting the importance of studying the preparatory venues, committees and working groups, and their associated actors. The blending of “traditional” policymakers with a growing number of experts and numerous transnational, national, and local actors highlights the importance of unravelling knowledge production and use in everyday policymaking practices – what Bandola-Gill et al. (2024) refer to as “boundary policy work,” which has led to a “growing focus on the actors ‘in-between’ knowledge production and policy” (p. 135). Simultaneously, the changes between society and knowledge have hybridised knowledge formation: the knowledge of ‘non-scientists’ – end users, citizens, and professionals – is incorporated into new knowledge or policies (Delvaux & Schoenaerts, 2012). The policy work of higher education policymaking actors is embedded in epistemic authority and its function in decision-making processes. The capacity to influence stems not only from scientific evidence and technical expertise but also from the representativeness and legitimacy emerging from the alignment between policy advisers’ technical solutions and policymakers’ diverse needs (Galanti, 2023).

In this presentation we offer a hands-on account of the conduct of higher education policy research and reflect on our research process. The presentation consists of two parts: firstly, we introduce the variety of methodologies we use to understand, examine and interpretate knowledge networks. Secondly, we offer a reflexive account to outline our research journey from the researcher's perspective and share insights about how we understand knowledge and trustworthy research. Our research project utilised a mixed-method convergent design (Creswell & Plano Clark 2017), integrating network analysis, thematic interviews, and observations. Network analysis was used to understand the structure of the political arena, focusing on social relations and interactions within the networks. Social Network Analysis (e.g. Borgatti et al. 2013) provided a quantitative approach, while network ethnography (e.g. Ball & Junemann 2012) offered qualitative insights, allowing for a flexible analysis of network members and their relationships. Thematic interviews ‘with the powerful’ (Walford 2011) were conducted with key actors in the Finland-EU higher education policymaking network, including politicians, stakeholders, and officials. These interviews provided knowledge and perspectives on the functioning of the networks. Team ethnographic methods (e.g. Evans et al. 2015) were conducted in three institutional contexts: two sub-committees at the Ministry of Education and Culture and Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment in Finland, and in the European Parliament’s Committee on Culture and Education (CULT). These observations helped triangulate the findings from the interviews and network analysis (e.g. Lamont & Swidler 2014). We wish to broaden the methodological account with reflexive discussions and providing transparency to our on our research group’s practices. To ensure trustworthiness (Guba & Lincoln, 1985) of our research, we analysed the research project’s internal group interviews, fieldwork notes, and research diaries. We drew on the literature on reflexive methodology (Alvesson & Sköldberg, 2009), the messiness inherent to research (Addey & Piattoeva, 2022), and the role of research paradigms in education contexts (Kivunja & Kuyini, 2017). We share insights to our conceptions of knowledge and how we understand trustworthy research and how these have informed our research process. We highlight how seemingly incompatible theoretical approaches and research paradigms work together, reinforcing our understanding of how important it is to engage in dialogue between research group members to address the tensions that may arise from different methodological backgrounds and epistemological approaches. We also discuss how methodology can inform the research question through observations during the empirical stage.

Addey, C., & Piattoeva, N. (2022). Intimate Accounts of Education Policy Research Routledge. Alvesson, M., & Sköldberg, K. (2009). Reflexive Methodology: New Vistas for Qualitative Research. Sage. Ball, S. J., & Junemann, C. (2011). Education Policy and Philanthropy. International Journal of Public Administration, 34(10), 646–661. Borgatti, S. P., Everett, M. G., & Johnson, J. C. (2013). Analyzing social networks. Sage Publications. Creswell, J. & Plano Clark, V.L. (2017). Designing and Conducting Mixed Methods Research, 3rd Edition (third edition). SAGE Guba, E. G., & Lincoln, Y. S. (1994). Competing paradigms in qualitative research. In N. K. Denzin & Y. S. Lincoln (Eds.), Handbook of Qualitative Research (pp. 105–117). Sage. Evans, J., Huising, R., & Silbey, S. S. (2015). Accounting for Accounts: Crafting Ethnographic Validity Through Team Ethnography. In K. D. Elsbach & R. Kramer (Eds.), Handbook of qualitative organizational research: Innovative pathways and methods (pp. 175–187). Kivunja, C., & Kuyini, A. B. (2017). Understanding and applying research paradigms in educational contexts. International Journal of Higher Education, 6(5), 26-41. Lamont, M., & Swidler, A. (2014). Methodological Pluralism and the Possibilities and Limits of Interviewing”. Qualitative Sociology, 37(2), 153–171. Walford, G. (2011). Researching the powerful, British Educational Research Association on-line resource.

This presentation investigates how national and EU higher education policymaking are embedded and scrutinises the networks operating in and between Finland and the European Union (EU) in the higher education policy field. According to Rhodes (2006, p. 426), ‘policy networks are sets of formal institutional and informal linkages between governmental and other actors structured around […] beliefs and interests in public policy making and implementation’. Policymaking process unfolds through these linkages, and in that process various government and non-government actors negotiate and construct public policies (Dal Molin & Masella 2016; Klijn & Koppenjan 2016). At macro-level analyses in political science, actors are typically organisations (Knoke 2011). The data for this presentation comprises of data on EU level working groups collected from on-line sources through network ethnography, register-based data on Finnish national level working gropus under the Ministry of Education and Culture (MEC), 45 interviews on policymakers (politicians, public officials, stakeholders), and ethnographic observations conducted in the Finnish sub-committee on educational affairs. Analysis was conducted with the design described in the previous presentation. We found that the network formation followed organisational structures in that the individuals working in the network represented organisations and were empowered by the organisations they worked for. The relationships between the actors included both formal and informal dimensions, but those dimensions intertwined: interviews and observations informed us how informal relationships developed around formal ones, while the set of actors remains largely the same. At macro-level, drawing on network ethnography, our analysis found that the policy network between Finland and the EU was relatively fragmented, but its main component included EU Member States, political parties, trade union central organisations, and universities. Conversely, based on the register-based data and social network analysis, the Finnish national network was centered around the MEC and consisted of public organisations, trade unions, universities and their representative organisations, and national students’ unions. We also found that the organisations that were members of the Finnish ministry sub-committee on education were typically at the center of the national network. Drawing on our interview and observation data, we suggest that despite the formal institutional boundaries, there does not seem to be a clear separation between national and EU-level policymaking in the field of education. Our analysis indicates that higher education is deeply embedded within European structures, making it difficult at times to distinguish between what is “national” and what is “European.”

Dal Molin, M. & Masella, C. (2016). Networks in policy, management and governance: A comparative literature review to stimulate future research avenues. Journal of Management & Governance, 20, 823–849. Klijn, E. H., & Koppenjan, J. (2016). Governance Networks in the Public Sector. Routledge. Knoke, D. (2011). Policy networks. In J. Scott & P. Carrington (Eds.), The SAGE Handbook of Social Network Analysis (pp. 210–222). SAGE. Rhodes, R. A. W. (2006). Policy network analysis. In M. Moran, M. Rein, & R. E. Goodin (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of public policy (pp. 425–447). Oxford University Press.

This presentation explores how policy makers’ knowledge use is framed by institutional contexts and norms (Scott, 2014). We ask how policy makers conceptualise knowledge, how norms frame knowledge and its use, and how policymakers use knowledge in institutional settings. We utilise qualitative content analysis (Hsieh & Shannon, 2005), political discourse analysis (Fairclough & Fairclough, 2012), and policy ethnography (Geddes, 2019) to analyse 45 policymaker (politicians, public officials, stakeholders) interviews and observation fieldnotes from education committees in Finland and Brussels. This presentation contributes to understanding the variety and hierarchies of knowledge used in higher education policy making (Grek, 2024; Lynggaard, 2019; Freeman & Sturdy, 2014) in the context of European Union higher education policymaking. We draw on normative (March & Olsen, 1984) and discursive institutionalism (Carstensen & Schmidt, 2015). We are interested in how policymakers use ideas to persuade others and legitimate their position in institutional contexts (Lynggaard, 2019; Carstensen & Schmidt, 2015) and how norms prescribe legitimate knowledge and how knowledge ought to be used (Scott, 2014). We approach institutions as concrete interdepencies between people (Herranen, 2022) which are shaped and reshaped in interaction (Carstensen and Schmidt, 2015). Policymakers actively engage with and interpret institutional norms (Scott, 2014). Norms and ideas have power: they prescribe ways to engage with knowledge while excluding other ways of knowing and acting (Foucault 1980). Consequently, the power of knowledge lies in its capacity to impose norms and ideas as dominant and in persuading actors to change their position (Carstensen & Schmidt, 2015). Our results show that policymakers consider a broad range of information as knowledge: international comparative statistics (e.g. Grek, 2024) are mixed and matched with personal experience and colleagues’ expertise (e.g. Freeman & Sturdy, 2014). Policymakers rely on knowledge that is collectively accepted and combine a variety of sources, as such knowledge is more likely to be deemed as reliably and trustworthy by others. For example, in European Parliament’s Committee on Culture and Education (CULT) policymakers strived to enhance their legitimacy as a public forum by invoking shared European values and ideas as well as statistics that proved citizens’ participation in CULT activities (e.g. Carstensen & Shmidt, 2015). In conclusion, policymakers who play by institution’s rules, understand institutional expectations, and can draw on instutionalised knowledge gain in power. Actors and knowledge that come from the outside policymaker networks have difficult time in breaching into the European Union higher education policymaking sphere.

Carstensen, M. B., & Schmidt, V. A. (2015). Power through, over and in ideas: Conceptualizing ideational power in discursive institutionalism. Journal of European Public Policy, 23(3), 318–337. Fairclough, I., & Fairclough, N. (2012). Political discourse analysis: A method for advanced students. Routledge. Foucault, M. (1980). Truth and power. In C. Gordon (Ed.), Michel Foucault: Power/ knowledge: Selected interviews and other writings 1972–1977 (pp. 109–134). Pantheon Books. Freeman, R., & Sturdy, S. (2014). Knowledge in policy: Embodied, inscribed, enacted. Bristol University Press. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctt9qgztx Geddes, M. (2019). Dramas at Westminster: Select committees and the quest for accountability. Manchester University Press Grek, S. (2024). The new production of expert knowledge: Education, quantifcation and utopia. Palgrave Macmillan. Herranen, O. (2022). The invisible order: A relational approach to social Institutions. Springer International Publishing AG. Hsieh, H. F., & Shannon, S. E. (2005). Three approaches to qualitative content analysis. Qualitative Health Research, 15(9), 1277–1288. https://doi.org/10.1177/1049732305276687 Lynggaard, K. (2019). Discourse analysis and European Union politics. Palgrave Studies in European Union Politics. March, J., & Olsen, J. (1984). The new institutionalism: Organisational factors in political life. The American Political Science Review, 78(3), pp. 734–749. https://www.jstor.org/stable/1961840 Scott, W. (2014). Institutions and organisations: Ideas, interests and identities. SAGE.