Published by: Taylor & Francis
Frequency: Twelve issues per year
Print ISSN: 0307-5079
Online ISSN: 1470-174X
Studies in Higher Education
This journal has a wide ranging interest in higher education and the social and institutional contexts within which it takes place, but gives particular emphasis to education as practice, with a view to influencing its development.
Editor in Chief
Professor Creso Sá
Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto, Canada.
Senior Editor
Professor Maria Slowey
Higher Education Research Centre (HERC), Dublin City University, Ireland.
Associate Editors
Dr Emma Harden-Wolfson
Department of Integrated Studies in Education (DISE), McGill University, Canada.
Professor Molly Lee
School of Educational Studies, Universiti Sains Malaysia, Penang, Malaysia.
Dr Giulio Marini
Department of Economics and Business, University of Catania, Italy.
Dr Christine Teelken
Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Netherlands.
Special issues Editors
Professor Kate Black
Newcastle Business School, Northumbria University, UK.
Professor Ming Cheng
Sheffield Institute of Education, Sheffield Hallam University, UK
Journal Vacancy
The Society for Research into Higher Education (SRHE) is seeking to recruit a new Associate Editor.
The Associate Editor should have significant prior editorial experience, possess a range of subject expertise, understand different research approaches and have a strong, demonstrated background in quantitative methods. Knowledge of a number of different higher education systems globally would be an advantage.
The Society encourages applications from all qualified candidates and is committed to increasing our engagement with underrepresented groups and regions – applicants with research knowledge/expertise of regions in the global south are particularly encouraged to apply.
Full details and job description available here .
Closing date: 4th August 2025.
Special Issues: Current Open Calls for Papers
Six new Special Issues of Studies are currently open for the submission of abstracts (up to 200 words) and proposals (max 1500 words). Click on the titles below for further details and submission instructions.
Learner Agency and Human-AI Collaboration: Shaping Hybrid Intelligence for the Future of Higher Education
Guest Editors:
- Andy Nguyen*, University of Oulu, Finland
- Davy Ng, The Education University of Hongkong, Hong Kong
- Dr Xianghan (Christine) O’Dea, King’s College London, United Kingdom
- Cecilia K.Y. Chan, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong
*Contact: andy.nguyen@oulu.fi
Scope, Purpose, Timeliness & Significance
The integration of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in higher education has accelerated rapidly, reshaping the way learners engage with knowledge, construct understanding, and manage their learning processes (Giannakos et al., 2024; Nguyen et al., 2024). This Special Issue (SI) focuses on the pivotal role of learning agency, defined as the capacity of learners to purposefully engage, regulate, and adapt their learning in technologically rich environments, particularly in evolving contexts where human cognition intersects with AI capabilities. As higher education institutions face different challenges of preparing learners for careers and societal roles that have yet to be defined (Ng et al., 2021; O’Dea, 2024), understanding how AI integration can enhance rather than undermine learner agency becomes critical.
This SI responds to the growing need to reframe higher education amid the rapid and widespread integration of generative AI, particularly as its capabilities continue to advance (Giannakos et al., 2024; Nguyen et al., 2024). While the risks of “metacognitive laziness” are increasingly acknowledged (Fan et al., 2024), there remains a lack of evidence and strategies for sustaining learner agency in AI-integrated learning. This SI aims to gather leading research and insights that inform effective strategies for integrating generative AI into higher education, emphasizing sustainable practices that foster learner autonomy, critical thinking, and adaptability. It focuses particularly on how hybrid intelligence, the complementary collaboration between human and AI, can empower students to navigate uncertainty, complexity, and an increasingly unpredictable future.
This SI aims to identify strategies to empower learners with agency as “co-pilots,” rather than passive passengers, in AI-enhanced learning. In uncertain and rapidly changing contexts, nurturing learner agency is not only pedagogically sound but imperative for preparing graduates who can thrive in collaboration with AI. This SI will advance timely research and provides empirical evidence on how learner agency can be promoted to enable responsible AI literacy, effective and ethical human-AI collaboration, contributing to the development of hybrid intelligence and holistic competencies in higher education (e.g., Chan et al. 2024; Ng et al., 2021).
This special issue invites forward thinking, theoretically informed, and ethically reflective submissions to contribute new or in-depth insights to the field. Contributions are invited to address, but are not limited to, the following themes:
- Theoretical and empirical explorations of learner agency in AI-integrated learning.
- Frameworks for fostering human-AI collaboration (Hybrid Intelligence) in higher education.
- Pedagogical innovations leveraging AI to enhance learner autonomy, and metacognition.
- Ethical considerations in designing AI systems that support learner agency and autonomy.
- Case studies of AI-enhanced learning environments promoting learner agency.
Timeline:
- Abstract (up to 200 words) and proposal (max 1500 words) submission to guest editors via email nguyen@oulu.fi: 30 August 2025
- Abstract & proposal review decision: 15 September 2025
- Full manuscript (up to 7000 words) submission to guest editors via email nguyen@oulu.fi: 5 January 2026
- Internal review decision by guest editors: 20 January 2026
Advancing Female Academics into Executive Leadership Positions: Experiences and Strategies
Guest editors
- Hiba K. Massoud, Cardiff Metropolitan University, Cardiff School of Management, Wales, UK.
- Norzaini Azman, Faculty of Education, Centre for Educational Leadership and Policy, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, Malaysia.
- Rami M. Ayoubi, Research Centre for Global Learning, Coventry University, England, UK. Contact email: ad4550@coventry.ac.uk
- Rasha Abd El-Aziz, Arab Academy for Science and Technology Maritime, College of Management, Egypt.
- Sariya Cheruvallil-Contractor, Research Centre for Peace and Security, Coventry University, England, UK.
This Special Issue explores strategies and initiatives to advance the representation of female academics in senior and executive leadership positions in the higher education sector. It aims to address the gender gap in academic leadership, which limits institutional innovation, equity, and performance (Choi and Ko, 2024; Correa et al., 2025). By showcasing global, intersectional, and structural strategies for advancing women into executive roles, the issue offers practical insights and transformative models relevant across higher education systems. It challenges systemic barriers, highlights the role of allies, and amplifies underrepresented voices, ensuring inclusive leadership development. For scholars, practitioners, and policymakers alike, this focus provides evidence-based approaches to reshape institutional cultures and create more equitable and dynamic leadership pathways in higher education.
This Special Issue invites forward thinking, theoretically informed, and ethically reflective submissions to contribute new or in-depth insights to the field of leadership in higher education.
Contributions are invited to address, but are not limited to, the following themes:
- Institutional reforms & organisational culture of policies, structures, and workplace norms that enable or hinder women’s progression into executive leadership roles.
- Intersectionality & inclusive pathways for of access, support, and advancement for women with intersecting identities in leadership trajectories.
- Mentorship, sponsorship & male allyship of networks, relationships, and practices that champion and sustain women’s rise to senior positions.
- Leadership identity & professional development of how female academics shape their leadership identities and build capabilities for executive roles.
- Comparative & global insights of strategies, challenges, and models across diverse higher education systems that advance women’s representation in top leadership.
Timelines
- 30 Sept 2025 – submit abstract (up to 200 words) and a proposal (max 1500 words) to ad4550@coventry.ac.uk
- 15 Oct 2025 – review results from the guest editorial team
- 28 Feb 2026 – full manuscript submission to the guest editorial team for review to ad4550@coventry.ac.uk
- 15 March 2026 – review results from the guest editorial team
Reconciling Marketisation: Plotting post-market reform and a new political economy of higher education
Guest Editors
- Professor Tatiana Fumasoli (UCL); fumasoli@ucl.ac.uk
- Professor Richard Watermeyer (University of Bristol); watermeyer@bristol.ac.uk
This Special Issue proposal draws on seven major issues impacting global higher education: funding, massification, internationalisation, digital technologies, employability, prestige, and polycrisis, to posit ways of conceptualising and organising higher education decoupled from the prevailing logic of marketisation and in pursuit of a new political economy.
Through this Special Issue we seek contributions that can enrich and move beyond established critiques of marketisation that have arguably excessively privileged an anti-marketisation discourse and led to insufficient attention on new emerging issues that, we contend, are shaping higher education and will do so for years to come. These include contested visions of higher education’s value proposition – its public good or private value; its financial sustainability; its ethical responsibilities (particularly ecological and social justice imperatives); its efforts for internationalisation amidst geopolitical instability and growing nativism; academic freedom and free speech in an age of identity wars; systemic malpractices in academic research and publishing; student recruitment and degree awarding. Our provocation is that if there is no desuetude from a market paradigm of higher education, the energy of its ideological opposition should be positively repurposed to understand through theory-driven and evidence-based empirical research how academia might revivify its role of intellectual, scholarly and scientific beacon
By welcoming a multiplicity of theoretical and methodological perspectives, this Special Issue aims to reverse theoretical stagnation and spark new, creative thinking about the future value and purpose of higher education. We are particularly interested in theory-based empirical papers that can provide robust evidence for new ways of thinking and organising higher education. High-quality conceptual papers that offer significant theoretical advancements with empirical illustrations, will also be given full consideration. We invite papers that address, but are not limited to, the following themes:
- Refinancing higher education: beyond the market model.
- The end of massification? Rebalancing the higher education offer
- Undoing internationalisation? Global engagement in an age of fracture
- The reshaping of higher education by digital technologies
- From higher education to employment and public citizenship
- The death of prestige? Disbanding the rankings imperative
- The implications of polycrisis for higher education
Timelines
- Abstract (up to 200 words) and proposal (max 1500 words) submission to the guest editors fumasoli@ucl.ac.uk and richard.watermeyer@bristol.ac.uk by 30 September 2025
- Guest editor review results on 15 October 2025
- Full manuscript (max 7000 words) submission to guest editor on 1 April 2026
- Guest editor decision on manuscripts on 1 May 2026
Trauma and higher education: Critical perspectives on an emerging equity agenda
Guest Editors
- Professor Sarah O’Shea (Charles Sturt University)
- Dr Maree Martinussen (Charles Sturt University)
Aims and scope
This special issue examines how trauma – a politically charged concept – is conceptualised, mobilised and institutionalised in higher education, particularly in relation to equity, diversity and inclusion (EDI). Once marginal, trauma is increasingly embedded in pedagogical frameworks, wellbeing strategies and institutional discourse but responses are often individualised, overlooking trauma’s historical and relational dimensions. This special issue contends that trauma is a key lens for understanding how higher education enacts both harm and care, exploring the potential of this concept to support more reflexive and justice-oriented practices.
We invite engagement with trauma as both a lived experience and institutional concern. A growing body of critical higher education research frames trauma in varied ways – as psychological (Stromberg, 2023), cultural (Shalka, 2021) and affective (Walkerdine, 2021) – situating it within broader conditions of inequality, including racism (Steinman & Sánchez, 2021), classism (Marvell & Child, 2023), heterosexism (Nicolazzo et al., 2021), gendered violence (Tarzia et al., 2024) and ableism (Carter, 2015). Foundational work beyond higher education (Berlant, 2011; Leys, 2000; Thompson, 2021) foregrounds the conceptual, political and historical complexity of trauma, cautioning against its medicalisation or universalisation. Such work invites us to ask how trauma becomes legible in higher education contexts, what narratives of harm are privileged, and how a more critical, situated approach might reshape policy, pedagogy and practice.
Suggested areas of inquiry
We welcome contributions that are empirical, conceptual or theoretical, and that engage with higher education policy, governance, pedagogy, student support, campus culture or broader socio-political dynamics. Comparative and cross-national perspectives are encouraged. Contributions are invited to address, but are not limited to, the following themes:
- Theoretical tensions between psychological, sociological, cultural and political framings of trauma
- Critical examinations of how trauma is defined, recognised and operationalised in HE institutions
- The role of trauma in shaping EDI strategies and outcomes and the risks of depoliticising or scaling up trauma-informed approaches
- Intersectional analyses of trauma across diverse staff and student populations
- Institutional responses to trauma in contexts of austerity or instability
- Pedagogical tensions between ‘safe’ and ‘brave’ spaces
Timelines
- Abstract (up to 200 words) and proposal (max 1500 words) submission: 15 October 2025
- Abstract & proposal review decision by guest editors: 30 October 2025
- Full manuscript (up to 7000 words) submission to guest editors: 1 September 2026
- Internal review decision by guest editors: 1 October 2026
- Manuscripts submission online for peer reviewing: 1 November 2026.
Please send enquires and submissions to: mmartinussen@csu.edu.au
Global Pathway and Local Market: International Student Career Choices and Outcomes amid Geopolitical Shifts in Higher Education
Guest Editors
- Lead Guest Editor: Sheng-Ju Chan, National Chung Cheng University, Taiwan
- Co-Editors: Angela Yung-Chi Hou, National Chengchi University, Taiwan
In light of escalating geopolitical tensions, shifting visa regimes, changing employment policies, and rising nationalism, international students today confront an increasingly uncertain global environment. This special issue seeks to explore how these dynamics are influencing international student post-graduation career choices and outcomes.
In the current era of intensified geopolitical tensions, rapid technological advancement, and shifting global power dynamics, the mobility of international students has become a defining feature of higher education. The global education landscape is increasingly shaped by changing diplomatic relations and transformations in regional and local labor markets. As a result, the career choices and outcomes of international students have grown more complex, unpredictable, and uneven. Decisions about where to work and build a career are now closely tied to factors such as perceived career opportunities, pathways to permanent residency, labor market openness, and broader socio-economic conditions—making career prospects a central consideration in international education mobility.
International students today navigate not only academic challenges but also increasingly complex decisions about their career trajectories within an environment shaped by the intertwined factors outlined above. This intersection between global educational pathways and local labor markets raises crucial questions about how international student career choices and outcomes can be understood, planned for, and measured—both in the short term and over longer-term horizons. These are the central concerns of this special issue.
This special issue invites forward thinking, theoretically informed, and ethically reflective submissions to contribute new or in-depth insights to the field.
Contributions are invited to address, but are not limited to, the following themes:
- International student career development and trajectories.
- Shifting employment opportunities and career decisions of international students
- Changing global geopolitics and career choices for international students
- Geopolitical tensions and disparities in career outcomes
- Policy and institutional contexts shaping international student career choice and advancement
- The impacts of global pathways and local market dynamics on career outcomes
Timeline
- Abstract (up to 200 words) and proposal (max 1500 words) submission to guest editors: 30 October 2025
- Abstract & proposal review decision: 15 November 2025
- Full manuscript (up to 7000 words) submission to guest editors: 30 June 2026
- Internal review decision by guest editors: 30 July 2026
Guest editors’ emails are: ju1207@ccu.edu.tw & yungchi@nccu.edu.tw
Reconfiguring Institutional Logics in Higher Education in a Changing Society: Theories, Methods, and Evidence
Guest Editors:
- Professor Yuzhuo Cai (The Education University of Hong Kong) cyuzhuo@eduhk.hk
- Associate Professor Nicola Mountford (Maynooth University) nicola.mountford@mu.ie
- Professor Bruce Macfarlane (The Education University of Hong Kong) bmac@eduhk.hk
In the context of rapid digital transformation, geopolitical shifts, and cultural renegotiations, this special issue invites contributions that critically examine the reconfiguration of institutional logics – the norms, values, and practices that shape higher education institutions. We aim to deepen the analytical and methodological rigour of institutional logics research while fostering synergies with studies on higher education’s value systems and philosophical traditions. We welcome both theoretical and empirical submissions that explore how emerging forces – such as artificial intelligence, deglobalisation, demands for public impact, and evolving professional norms – are reshaping the interplay among market, state, profession, community, and other institutional logics in higher education.
Contributions are invited to address, but are not limited to, the following themes:
- Reconfigurations of institutional logics in response to societal transformations such as artificial intelligence, deglobalisation, and geopolitical shifts
- AI as a transformative force reshaping professional, market, and state logics across teaching, research, and governance in higher education
- Methodological innovation and critique in institutional logics research, including opportunities and limitations of quantitative, qualitative, and mixed approaches
- Institutional complexity and hybridity, including the coexistence, clash, or convergence of multiple logics within and across higher education systems
- Organisational change and governance, examining how shifts in logic constellations condition internal transformation processes and power dynamics
- Public impact and epistemological concerns, including new logics of societal relevance and legitimacy in research and doctoral education
- Comparative and regional perspectives, especially analyses addressing non-Western contexts or drawing from local philosophies and traditions (e.g., Ubuntu, Confucianism)
- Institutional work and actor agency, with focus on both academic and professional staff in shaping, maintaining, or disrupting existing logic configurations
- Integration of philosophical and cultural perspectives to deepen the theoretical and normative foundation of institutional logics in higher education
Timeline:
- Abstract (up to 200 words) and proposal (max 1500 words) submission: 30 October 2025
- Abstract & proposal review decision: 30 November 2025
- Full manuscript (up to 7000 words) submission to guest editors: 30 November 2026
- Internal review decision by guest editors: 15 January 2027
We invite scholars across disciplines and geographies to join this dialogue. For questions and submissions, please contact Yuzhuo Cai at cyuzhuo@eduhk.hk .