Student Experience in the Research University (SERU) Project and Consortium

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SERU EU Consortium Initiative

The Student Experience in the Research University (SERU) Project based at the Center for Studies in Higher Education at the University of California – Berkeley campus is inviting a group of leading Asian and European research universities to join the SERU Consortium.

The purpose of the SERU Consortium is to draw together a group of progressive research universities to:

• collaboratively generate new institutional, comparative, and longitudinal data on the undergraduate experience; and
• systematically use subsequent analysis as a tool for policy and scholarly relevant research and institutional self-improvement.

The SERU Consortium is not built on a fee-for-service model like many other surveys, rather it is a collaboration among motivated major research universities; it is also designed as a distinctly bottom-up or institutional-driven initiative that may have implications for shaping national initiatives in quality assurance – but that is not our primary purpose. Each Consortium member contributes funding to support administrative costs and research and policy activities.

Shared Challenges
Globally, and in particular in the US and Europe, research universities face similar challenges related to changing student demographics, questions regarding affordability and expanding participation in higher education, declining public funding relative to costs, the adoption of instructional technologies, increased international competition regarding the quality of our academic degree programs, pressure to measure student learning outcomes, and the need for greater understanding and articulation of the strengths of research universities. Based on these shared challenges, the formation of a SERU EU Consortium may be productive for the following reasons:

• We believe that comparative data and perspectives between similar institutions provide a tremendous tool for discovering best practices and pursuing institutional self-improvement. Our capacity to provide such a tool will be significantly enhanced by expanding the SERU Consortium to include a group of EU universities.
• Greater institutional self-knowledge about the student experience is also vital for universities as they pursue self-defined quality assurance evaluations in advance of growing external pressure for one-size-fits-all assessment and accountability regimes. The SERU Consortium and Survey offer an institutionally derived and significant effort.
• Finally, preliminary discussion with EU colleagues indicates that our survey and collaborative approach offer a new and potentially important method to both generate and integrate new data that does not exist thus far in European universities.

Exploratory Meeting

SERU Project leaders Dr. John Aubrey Douglass and Dr. Steve Brint, along with our co-convener Dr. Marijk van der Wende, will hold a daylong Exploratory Meeting on October 8 at Amsterdam University College of a select group of potentially interested European research universities to discuss:

• Current research and analysis in the US and EU on the student experience and its use for policy-relevant research and institutional self-improvement, including how SERU Survey data are integrated into academic program review and accreditation at the University of California;
• The content and design of the SERU Survey, the possible piloting of a European version of the SERU Survey among a small group of EU research universities, and the identification of universities as likely candidates for administration of the SERU survey instrument; and
• The potential formation of a European component of the SERU Consortium in which members share data, research, and analysis on the student experience; evidence of best practices; and how such data can be integrated into institutional self-awareness and self-improvement.

If you have questions regarding the purpose and content of the meeting, please contact John Douglass at or Marijk van der Wende at .