DFG research group multiple competition in higher education
In this research group researchers from sociology, economics and business administration are working together in eight sub-projects at nine universities.
Speaker of the DFG research group is Professor Georg Krücken.
The overall objective of this research group is to develop a comprehensive understanding of multiple competition in the field of higher education, based on contributions from sociology, economics and business administration. Multiple competition in higher education means that individual and collective actors are simultaneously embedded in and nested within several interconnected competitions. The relationship between these individual competitions leads to a complex netting of requirements, which actors have to face. This interdisciplinary research group, therefore, attempts to answer the following questions: How do actors position themselves when facing multiple competition? What dynamics unfold and what consequences result from multiple competition? To answer these questions, each subproject within the research group aims at analyzing a specific set of characteristics of multiple competition as well as the interrelations between these different competitions. By linking together the results from different subprojects, the research group as a whole will be able to draw a comprehensive picture and develop a theory of multiple competition in higher education. Given the broad usage of competition as a governance mechanism, such a theoretical understanding will be of high importance not only for higher education as a field, but also for the analysis of other areas of society, where no overall evaluation and price system exists. In addition, we expect relevant results for higher education policy and funding.