Changes in Networks, Higher Education and Knowledge Societies (CINHEKS)

A three-year study within the European Science Foundation’s Higher Education and Social Change (EuroHESC) research programme.

‘Knowledge society’ is a key idea in explaining the current changing relationship between higher education and society. This notion is based on a premise about the importance of knowledge in contemporary social and economic development.

The CINHEKS project is 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.  

It focuses on:

• the concrete linkages among academics, institutions and external role-players in different knowledge societies
• the impact of such networks on academics, institutions and society, and
• the basis of distinct differences between different knowledge societies.

The project aims to refine ‘knowledge society’ as an explanatory construct of social theory and critically examine how higher education institutions operate within   knowledge societies. In this way, the project aims to provide more evidence-based content for policy development.

The CINHEKS project runs from October 2009 - September 2012. It is led by the University of Jyvaskyla (Finland) and is being undertaken in collaboration with researchers from CHERI at the Open University, and research teams at the University of Kassel (Germany), Hiroshima University (Japan), Technical University of Lisbon (Portugal) and the University of Arizona (USA).

The Economic and Social Research Council is funding CHERI’s participation in the study, including a PhD studentship.

For further information about the EuroHESC research programme visit www.esf.org