ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the international networks of some universities in Europe. Contacts between universities and researchers are often made easier by formal organisational links, associations and agreements. The ways of organizing research and higher education vary from country to country. Sweden differs from many of the others in that a greater proportion of the research in progress is conducted at state universities and university colleges instead of at independent private institutions. In earlier times higher education and research were the preserve of an exclusive elite. It was at the courts of princes, under the auspices of the Church, and at those universities founded in Europe during the Middle Ages that these select few accumulated knowledge and developed educational ideals. The European Union’s determined concentration on research and higher education during the 1980s and 1990s has few if any international parallels.
