Values and aims of the leading universities of the German-speaking countries

Abstract

This article is based on the research integrating qualitative approach and the content analysis method. The aim is to analyse the mission and strategy of the higher education institutions, assuming that through the mission and strategy those institutions express their self-identification, describe their current state and indicate the directions of development. The subject of the analysis is the best higher education institutions of the German-speaking countries, operating in national and international environment. The research was based on the content analysis, and on its basis, the values and aims of each university were indicated, and then – using the bottom–up method – the aggregation of the universities’ areas of activities was done. In this sense, the selected scopes of activities and points of focus may constitute a generalised reference to the other universities and to the entire academic community in the studied countries. The analysis of the various types of the universities (full, technical, medical) did not demonstrate any significant differences in their self-identification and the designation of the functions of the university, despite the differences in the language of description and the breadth of the offered career perspectives. The common origin, and cultural and social context were also the important factors in this research. The analised higher education institutions were much more oriented towards the standards defined by the best universities in the world and the global challenges of civilisation, what allowed them to become the leading institutions in innovation and technology transfer to the economy. Nowadays, the investigated universities represent the highest standards of academic knowledge. At the same time, they express contemporary trends and requirements of a business organisation (e.g. transparency, evaluation, knowledge management, inclusiveness). Moreover, the investigated higher education institutions perceive themselves as the socially responsible universities, what is confirmed by such values as: inclusiveness, gender mainstreaming, and sustainable development