Local and Global Public Good of Higher Education: Canada, England, Finland and South Korea Case Studies, 2016-2024

Brewis, Linda Elisa Jennifer (2025). Local and Global Public Good of Higher Education: Canada, England, Finland and South Korea Case Studies, 2016-2024. [Data Collection]. Colchester, Essex: UK Data Service. 10.5255/UKDA-SN-857215

This project investigates the contributions of higher education to public good at both local and global levels in 10 nation states: Canada, Chile, China, England, Finland, France, Japan, Poland, South Korea, and the USA. The aims of the study were: (i) Through investigation of relevant literatures and empirical data collection, to systematically review approaches to the public outcomes (or nearest lexical equivalent) in each country in the study, with due regard for national-cultural-linguistic context; (ii) To identify similarities, differences, overlaps and gaps between the country cases; (iii) To explore the potential for generic approaches that could apply across all countries, that might constitute the basis for worldwide analytical and measurement-based work in the future, while identifying factors that shape variations between national contexts; (iv) To progress the definition, identification and measurement of global common goods in higher education and science.
The overall project dataset comprises 236 semi-structured interview transcripts with university staff (n= 196) and policymakers or policy professionals (n=40). Interviews followed a standardised semi-structured interview rubric which was adapted to suit each country context. Interview questions covered four broad themes: (1) understandings of private, public and common good(s) in general, and in higher education, in both the national and the global scales; (ii) the contributions of higher education to public good(s), and constraints on those contributions; (iii) the respective missions of and responsibilities in higher education of government and institutions, and the relations between them, including questions of autonomy; and (iv) how public and common goods can be observed and measured.

Data description (abstract)

This dataset forms part of a wider 10-nation comparative study on the local and global public good role of higher education. The dataset here comprises transcripts of 82 interviews with university staff and policymakers or policy professionals in the four case study countries that the University of Oxford research team were responsible for, namely: Canada (n=19), England (n=35), Finland (n=20), and South Korea (n=8).

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