Abstract
While tertiary education in Europe is faced with challenges through ongoing processes of globalization, the countries of SEE face additional problems because of multiple transition processes from authoritarian regimes to multi-party democracy and rule of law, and from centrally planned to market economies in the aftermath of the violent dissolution of SFRY. An interdisciplinary and inter-cultural research team at Graz University, supported by collaborators in SEECs, conducted academic research on the topic of research and tertiary education in SEE. The main goal of this publication is to analyze the development of the normative standard setting by the Bologna process and the Lisbon Strategy and the consequences which result from these processes for the integration of SEE countries into a EHEA and ERA; to analyze the institutional settings and processes within and between organisations of research and tertiary education in all of the SEE countries in their relation to the systems of state, society and economy and to describe developments with regard to the analytical framework developed, and, finally, to identify the challenges and needs for future reform processes for a full integration of SEE countries into the EHEA and ERA. The research concept was methodically based on a deconstructive-neo-institutional approach which combined normative and empirical analyses. After reflecting the results on the ground in SEE countries, policy recommendations are elaborated.