Creso Sá

On February 28, Nadiia Kachynska successfully defended her PhD thesis titled “Fostering Global Norms of Research Excellence: National Policies and Strategic Responses of Public Universities in Central and Eastern Europe.” Her thesis examines national policy interpretations of global research excellence norms in Poland, the Czech Republic and Ukraine, and how universities have responded to these norms. Drawing from interviews with policy experts and senior university administrators at 9 case study universities and documentary analysis, she explains how university organizational identities shape their responses to global norms, bringing a perspective from outside of “the global core” to the scholarly discussion on university research excellence.

Dr. Kachynska is a Strategic Program Manager at George Brown College.

In this month’s University Affairs column, Creso argues that we need to go beyond the tired old rhetoric of both critics of university conservatism and opponents to administrative rationalization to focus on effective management. Read the full text.

In this month’s column, Creso discusses the Council of Canadian Academies’ recently released report Powering Discovery, which was commissioned by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada. “This is a serviceable but, by design, unambitious report, generally speaking; it is more interesting for what it tells us about Canadian science policy than for the conclusion it reaches.”

On June 28, Donna Heslin successfully defended her PhD thesis titled “Use of Social Media in the Promotion of University-Based Entrepreneurship Centres.” Her thesis examines how university entrepreneurship centres use Twitter to connect with internal and external stakeholders. Drawing from interviews with centre directors and an analysis of twitter feeds, the thesis identifies patterns in the use of symbolic imagery across centres located in different regions, as well as in the kinds of actors they engaged with.

Dr. Heslin is Manager, Entrepreneurship & Innovation Partnerships at the City of Mississauga Economic Development Office.

Dr. Emma Sabzalieva’s thesis Responding to major institutional change: The fall of the Soviet Union and higher education in Central Asia won the 2021 Comparative & International Education Society Eurasia Special Interest Group Dissertation Award. Congratulations, Emma!