Comparing ‘Higher Education Regionalism’ in Europe and Asia

The rise of ‘higher education regionalism’ is one of the most fascinating developments in contemporary regional politics in the last decade. Here, we define ‘higher education regionalism’ as referring to the ‘political project of region creation’ and involves at least some state authority (national, supranational, international), who in turn designates and delineates the world’s geographical region to which such activities extend, in the higher education policy sector. This process of region building entails the adoption of a variety of mechanisms and instruments that would, in tum, amount to a discernible policy (action as well as inaction) in this domain. In this paper, we compare the ideas guiding the institutional structures introduced for facilitating regional higher education policy collaboration in Europe and in Asia.