Dr Vassiliki Papatsiba
School of Education
Senior Lecturer
Director of the Centre for the Study of Higher Education
+44 114 222 8152
Full contact details
School of Education
Edgar Allen House
241 Glossop Rd
Sheffield
S10 2GW
- Profile
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Dr Vassiliki Papatsiba researches issues about universities, research and higher education in a globalised context. She specialises in the sociological study of University, with emphasis on internationalisation issues, from a comparative, mainly European, perspective. She also has a keen interest in research policy and its implications for academic practice. Her current research programme is concerned with the critical analysis of public policies of knowledge generation in Higher Education and its effects on academic conduct.
- Research interests
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Academic agendas of knowledge generation, collaboration and public policies
Vassiliki is investigating knowledge agendas in the academy, and the effects of research funding, policies and institutional governance on scientific rationality and individual behaviours of researchers. This strand of inquiry is being actively pursued through her EU-funded research project, namely ‘European Universities in the era of Knowledge and Networks’ (EUKnow, ongoing until December 2013) and a new project that she is developing with Dr Yann Lebeau (University of East Anglia) which examines current practice and perceptions of research collaboration among European social science researchers.
Universities, their communities and networks within Knowledge societies
Vassiliki is researching the role of networks and how these alter the conditions under which universities work, but also engage with and impact upon society. Vassiliki is currently involved in a collaborative multi-country investigation into how higher education institutions are networked in knowledge societies in three regions of the world: Europe, the USA and Japan. The ‘Change in Networks, Higher Education and Knowledge Societies (CINHEKS)’ project is funded by the European Science Foundation’s Higher Education and Social Change (EuroHESC) research programme. Within this strand of research, Vassiliki is working on comparative profiles of HEIs and is also interested in the ways in which networking elicits strategies of differentiation, 'world-class’ drift and constructions of excellence, as well as tendencies of exclusion and/or inclusion with respect to the production, circulation and use of knowledge.
Internationalisation in HE
Vassiliki has developed a keen interest in a broader set of issues that relate to policy and practice of Internationalisation in HE:
- critical study of supranational policies and the Bologna Process
- convergence processes and comparative methodology of case studies of HEIs
- competitiveness, and its impact on systems, institutions and academic communities
- understandings of the role of higher education and research, academic freedom and conceptions of the student
Within this strand of research, she conducted a comparative study on cross-European collaborative initiatives in study programmes at Master’s level in Engand, France, Norway and Spain (European Universities and Rationales of Tradition and Change- EURoTaC), for which she earned a prestigious Marie-Curie Intra-European Fellowship (EIF) at the University of Oxford.
Academic Mobility, post-national citizenship and identity
Vassiliki has a longstanding interest in the governing ends of educational policies, and the ways in which they shape student identities. She researched EU policies and student experiences of mobility within the Erasmus programme. Her doctoral research on the same topic (2002, University of Paris X-France), received the second prize for best thesis in social sciences in 2002, and subsequently led to a single-authored book (2003) and various peer-reviewed publications.
- Publications
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Books
Journal articles
- Institutional hierarchies and research impact : new academic currencies, capital and position-taking in UK higher education. British Journal of Sociology of Education, 41(2), 178-196. View this article in WRRO
- European Union, Higher Education in.
- Constructing a national higher education brand for the UK: positional competition and promised capitals. Studies in Higher Education, 43(1), 134-153. View this article in WRRO
- Conceptions and expectations of research collaboration in the European social sciences: Research policies, institutional contexts and the autonomy of the scientific field. European Educational Research Journal, 15(4), 377-394. View this article in WRRO
- The idea of collaboration in the academy, its epistemic and social potentials and risks for knowledge generation. Policy Futures in Education, 11(5).
- Policy goals of European Integration and Competitiveness in Academic Collaborations: an examination of Joint Master's and Erasmus Mundus Programmes. Higher Education Policy.
- What is the public role of the university? A proposal for a public research agenda. European Educational Research Journal, 8(2), 249-254.
- European higher education policy and the formation of entrepreneurial students as future European citizens. European Educational Research Journal, 8(2), 189-203.
- Making higher education more European through student mobility? Revisiting EU initiatives in the context of the Bologna Process. COMP EDUC, 42(1), 93-111.
- Political and individual rationales of student mobility: A case-study of Erasmus and a French regional scheme for studies abroad. European Journal of Education, 40(2), 173-188.
- Student Mobility in Europe: An Academic, Cultural and Mental Journey? Some Conceptual Reflections and Empirical Findings. International Perspectives on Higher Education Research, 3, 29-65.
- Écrire pour une commande administrative : le destinataire, son rôle et son influence sur l’écriture d’une expérience étudiante. Spirale. Revue de recherches en éducation, 29(1), 221-245.
Chapters
- Knowledge with Impact in Higher Education Research, Theory and Method in Higher Education Research (pp. 203-224). Emerald Publishing Limited
- Feeling the Brexit Shock, Changing Higher Education for a Changing World (pp. 67-83). Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
- Higher Education in Networked Knowledge Societies, RE-BECOMING UNIVERSITIES? (pp. 13-39). Springer Netherlands
- Diversity of Higher Education Institutions in Networked Knowledge Societies: A Comparative Examination, RE-BECOMING UNIVERSITIES? (pp. 115-139). Springer Netherlands
- Chapter 6. Study Abroad and Experiences of Cultural Distance and Proximity: French Erasmus Students, Living and Studying Abroad (pp. 108-133). Multilingual Matters
- Research group
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Vassiliki particularly welcomes inquiries for doctoral studies in the following areas:
- Internationalisation / globalisation and their impact on national policies, systems and academic communities;
- EU policies, Bologna Process reforms and implementation, policy transfer;
- Academic profession, collaboration and networks;
- Student mobility, citizenship and identity;
- Comparative methodology and case studies.
#supervisionaries - stories of brilliant doctoral supervision
My supervisor is great because she supervises according to her students' needs and objectives rather than having a rigid approach. She has helped me think strategically about my career - something that did not come naturally to me. With her encouragement and support, I had the confidence to apply for and get an ideal first research post, despite still writing up my thesis. Even though I have now moved 150 miles south of Sheffield, she has continued to be supportive, flexible and responsive in terms of feedback and supervisions. Oh – and she always asks about my (and my wife’s) wellbeing!
- Grants
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(2005) Marie-Curie Intra-European Fellowship (IEF). Individual Fellowship at the University of Oxford, Department of Education, from 01/06 to 12/07. Grant awarded: €220,822. Success rate 2005: 15%.
- Teaching interests
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Vassiliki directs the EdD programme in Higher Education, based in Dublin, and is a member of the teaching team of the Higher Education route within the Education Doctorate (EdD) in Sheffield. She was the programme director of the ESRC-accredited Master’s in Educational Research (2009-2012).
She was the School of Education lead for the successful application for establishing one of the 21 newly created ESRC Doctoral Training Centres (DTCs) at the Faculty of Social Sciences within the White Rose consortium (University of Sheffield, University of Leeds and University of York).
She is also the School coordinator of the student scholarship competitions.
Distinctions/awards
- (2002) OVE-National Observatory for students' life, France, Paris: 2nd Prize in annual competition of doctoral dissertations completed in 2001-2002 in Social Sciences.
- (2007) European Science Foundation (ESF), ‘ESF Humanities Spring 2007'. Leading young scholars award on the theme of "Disciplines and Borders: Humanities Research in an age of Inter-disciplinarity".
- Awards
- (2002) OVE-National Observatory for students' life, France, Paris: 2nd Prize in annual competition of doctoral dissertations completed in 2001-2002 in Social Sciences.
- (2005) Marie-Curie Intra-European Fellowship (IEF). Individual Fellowship at the University of Oxford, Department of Education, from 01/06 to 12/07. Grant awarded: €220,822. Success rate 2005: 15%.
- (2007) European Science Foundation (ESF), ‘ESF Humanities Spring 2007'. Leading young scholars award on the theme of "Disciplines and Borders: Humanities Research in an age of Inter-disciplinarity".