Higher Education Research in Asia: History, Development and Challenges

The book demonstrates the rapid evolution of higher education research in most Asian countries, particularly in East Asia, in terms of both the number of researchers and publications and the diversity of research themes and methodologies. However, higher education research in some countries in Asia is comparatively underdeveloped, underlying an inequality in terms of development of higher education research communities. This seems to be related to the stage of development of the higher education systems themselves as well as to traditional thinking about the organisation of fields of knowledge and science. This chapter summarises main findings of this book and answers to questions regarding identification of higher education research in Asian countries in terms of researchers, research institutes, academic programmes, national journals and relationship with government. It also summarises what topics are being studied and what methodologies have been applied in Asian higher education research. The book finally suggests challenges of Asian higher education research and emphasizes on international outlook of community.