Professor Ourania Filippakou
Professor - Education

Research area(s)

My research interests centre around three areas of specialisation:

• Global and international higher education
• Higher education policy and the politics of higher reducation
• Higher education and social justice

Research Interests

My main interest is in the politics of higher education, with particular reference to comparative historical analysis, a perspective that seeks to combine the methods of history with social science theories and concepts.

Other areas of my research and writing include: (i) comparative enquiries into the formation and development of higher educational systems and the role of higher education in social, political and economic change; (ii) the politics of higher educational reforms in liberal democratic polities, with particular reference to the European Union; and (iii) comparative historical enquiries into higher education systems of organising knowledge and pedagogy. In this connection, I engage the ancient Greeks in their cultural system of paideia to look critically at contemporary discourses and trends that prioritise techno-science and instrumental rationality, and under-emphasise paideia and humanistic knowledge.

Project details

• The role of public intellectuals in times of crisis (Canada-UK Foundation) - active
• A study to further gender equality in India (British Council India) (Co-I, led by Prof Maria Tsouroufli) 
• The idea of the ‘new’ 1960s universities in the UK: The political interpretation of the dynamics for change (Oxford Centre for Higher Education Policy Studies) - with Prof Ted Tapper
• Exploring the paradigms of higher education research in the UK and China (Society for Research into Higher Education) - with Prof Catherine Montgomery 
• ‘Higher education in the Western Balkans’ (Open Society Foundation) - with Dr Paul Temple
• ‘Pedagogic quality and inequality in first degrees’ (Economic and Social Research Council) - led by Prof Monica McLean
• ‘UK elite formation and higher education diversity’ - led by Prof Gareth Williams 
• ‘Progress in higher education reform across Europe: funding and governance’ (European Commission) - National expert (Greece)
• ‘Bologna-Reform study: the Bologna Process and its impact’ (European Commission) - National expert (Greece)
• ‘What is learned at University: The social and organisational mediation of university learning’ (SOMUL) – (Economic and Social Research Council), led by Prof John Brennan
• ‘Managing change and collaboration in dual sector (FE-HE) institutions’ (Higher Education Founding Council for England) - led by Prof Neil Garrod and Prof Bruce MacFarlane
• ‘European universities and entrepreneurialism: their role in the Europe of knowledge’ (European Commission) - led by Prof Michael Shattock
• ‘Learning spaces for the 21st century’ (Higher Education Academy) - led by Dr Paul Temple
• ‘Role and conduct of boards of examiners’ (Quality Committee, UCL Institute of Education)