355Chapter 20
Higher Education Research in Asia: History,
Development and Challenges
Jisun Jung, Hugo Horta, and Akiyoshi Yonezawa
Abstract The book demonstrates the rapid evolution of higher education research
in most Asian countries, particularly in East Asia, in terms of both the number of
researchers and publications and the diversity of research themes and methodolo-
gies. However, higher education research in some countries in Asia is comparatively
underdeveloped, underlying an inequality in terms of development of higher educa-
tion research communities. This seems to be related to the stage of development of
the higher education systems themselves as well as to traditional thinking about the
organisation of fields of knowledge and science. This chapter summarises main find-
ings of this book and answers to questions regarding identification of higher educa-
tion research in Asian countries in terms of researchers, research institutes, academic
programmes, national journals and relationship with government. It also summarises
what topics are being studied and what methodologies have been applied in Asian
higher education research. The book finally suggests challenges of Asian higher
education research and emphasizes on international outlook of community.
The field of higher education research is gaining legitimacy in most parts of the
world, and its importance is increasingly recognised by academics and policy mak-
ers in national, regional and international settings (Altbach et al. 2006 ). However,
little is still known about higher education research in Asia. There is no doubt that
both the scale and the visibility of higher education in Asia are increasing, and
numerous directions for research have been suggested by this growth. Nevertheless,
higher education research in Asia has a relatively short history in international
scholarship (Horta and Jung 2014 ; Jung and Horta 2013 ), and the understanding
that higher education researchers and other practitioners based elsewhere in the
J. Jung (*) • H. Horta
Division of Policy, Administration and Social Sciences Education, Faculty of Education,
The University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam, Hong Kong SAR, China
e-mail: [email protected]
A. Yonezawa
The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China
© Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2018
J. Jung et al. (eds.), Researching Higher Education in Asia, Higher Education in
Asia: Quality, Excellence and Governance, DOI 10.1007/978-981-10-4989-7_20