Cross-border relationships of Central-European higher education institutions

This paper focuses on the Central-European (so called „centrope") region. This region was created by a co-operation project 10 years ago, and also functions today including Vienna and other Austrian provinces such as Lower Austria and Burgenland, the region of South-Moravia in the Czech Republic, the region of Bratislava and Trnava in Slovakia, Gyõr-Moson-Sopron and Vas counties in Hungary, and cities of Eisenstadt, St. Pölten, Brno, Bratislava and Trnava. The main objective of this study is to examine the implementing sectoral co-operation projects of R&D and tertiary education activities between the higher education institutions of the region and the intensity of these relations. Furthermore, we also concentrate on the depth of regional integration and networking from the point of view of the relationships in higher education, particularly the strength and the weaknesses of bilateral and multilateral relations, and also the absence of co-operation in different areas. Recent mobility surveys found that the rate of student mobility is low between the institutions in the region and there are no mutual exchange programs. The language barriers and the deficiency of the institutions' attractiveness were defined as the main reasons of the low mobility besides the lack of frequent relations. Although sectoral clusters were established inside the region with the membership of higher education institutions, the demand of regional co-operation in the institutions' strategies is unknown, and there are no available pieces of information about data sharing and long-term co-operation between the institutions in the functioning clusters (i.e. automotive industry). It must be examined what the main criteria are in the election of partners for current projects and how extended is the mutual partnership in the projects of the regional institutions. It is an essential analysis viewpoint whether there is a difference between higher education institutions with regard to the above depending on the location of the institution (including the relationships between the HEI's in own countries) and how this affects cross-border regional relationships. To sum up, the study intends to provide answers to how and in what areas does sectoral co-operation exist in the region among the higher education institutions and what is the rate of these projects comparing all projects of the institution, as well as to define the leading sectors of the co-operations.