Yasunari Kawabata appropriates narrative elements from Western fairy tales in his late work, House of the Sleeping Beauties, applying the central image of the ‘sleeping beauty’ to a dark story set at night, shrouded in the gloominess and cold that often loom in people’s late lives. Viewed through the lens of narrative gerontology, Kawabata deals with different forms of narrative foreclosure in crafting the story. At the subject level, old Eguchi, as the protagonist and main narrator, ventures into a secret place in pursuit of unusual experiences to restart his own life story and break through the narrative foreclosure in his old age. At the object level, the ‘sleeping beauties’ fall into narrative foreclosure in their deep slumber, becoming the ‘Other’, unable to speak for themselves. In his unique way, Kawabata endows them with expressive power through sincere sympathy. In addition, the writer also breaks through his own narrative foreclosure in his late career by subverting the classic fairy tale to explore and confront death, revealing an active attitude towards aging. However, Kawabata’s suicide appears to counteract all these efforts, turning them into a mystery of ending.

This article reports on a study of the selection of academic top leaders from 1900 to 2025 in six highly ranked universities on the 2024 Academic Ranking of World Universities. These institutions represent the United States (Harvard and Stanford) with presidents as leaders, the United Kingdom (Cambridge and Oxford) with vice-chancellors, and Scandinavia (Copenhagen and Oslo) with rectors. For the population as a whole, the study shows an increase in the length of tenure, and in the selection of female leaders and of externals, while there has also been a decline in the number of recruitments per decade, in recruitment ages and the recruitment of persons with a background in STEM disciplines and Medicine (STEMM). A comparison between the six universities has demonstrated that Harvard and Stanford differ from the other four by having much lower numbers of recruitments, longer length of tenures, lower recruitment ages and recruiting externals earlier than their European counterparts. The Europeans started recruiting externals and female leaders in the 1990s. Oslo has so far not recruited any outsider, and Stanford has picked only male leaders. High shares of STEMM leaders are exhibited by Stanford and Oslo, while Harvard and Oxford have had low shares. An analysis of the most recent recruitments demonstrates that Harvard, Stanford and Copenhagen include outsiders in the decision process and keep candidacies secret. The latter is also the case for Cambridge and Oxford, which, however, do not include externals in the decision process. Oslo also leaves it to internals to decide but has a process where candidacies are publicly known. For the future, it is expected that non-US institutions will follow the top US universities more and more, thereby increasingly involving search consultants. The patterns on the Anglo-American market for academic leaders found in the present study are likely to develop further.

This article examines the representation of the forests as ideological spaces in The Jeaste of Sir Gawain (c. 1450) and The Wedding of Sir Gawain and Dame Ragnelle (c. 1450) through an analysis of female characters’ actions within these settings. By exploring the adventures, challenges, combats, and encounters experienced by Arthurian knights and women in the forests, this article argues that the romance forest is constructed in alignment with the principles of medieval chivalric ideology. Thus, it functions as a crucial site for the knight’s quest and moral development. However, despite the forest’s association with the knight’s chivalric pursuit, it is also inhabited by women whose roles are often subordinated to the knight’s narrative. These female figures are usually positioned as ancillary characters whose presence reinforces the chivalric ethos by facilitating the knight’s journey towards self-realization and perfection. Consequently, it is argued that the forests of these romances operate as gendered and ideological spaces that privilege the knight’s chivalric identity and self-aggrandisement while they marginalize and trivialize women’s actions.

Drawing on a project conducted between 2017 and 2020 for the UK Centre for Global Higher Education (CGHE), this article discusses the place of third space professionals within a changing professional workforce in UK higher education. At the same time as routine administrative roles in registry environments have, by and large, been superseded by online registration and data management facilities, new roles have emerged in a ‘third space’ between academic and professional spheres of activity. These have created issues of visibility, place, recognition and reward for those occupying them. Examples are given of a misalignment between such individuals and the organizational structures within which they work, affecting, for example, job descriptions, titles and promotion and progression criteria. The article goes on to reflect on the perceptions of senior institutional managers who are responsible for maintaining institutional structures, as well as of those in third space roles, and suggestions are made as to ways in which adjustments might be made for the future.

Whilst universities have long needed to balance competing demands, the situation seems to have been exacerbated in recent years, particularly in relation to funding, digital disruption and political interference. This article explores implications for the recruitment and development of higher-education leaders. Building on the concept of the ‘leadership pipeline’ we consider the passages that must be navigated on the way to becoming an effective academic leader, alongside associated (often competing) logics and identities. Through vignettes from an empirical study in a Danish university we illustrate the complexities of leadership transitions, leadership disconnections and logic misalignment in educational leadership. The discussion presents an ecosystems model that shows the interdependencies and interconnections between core functions of higher education and the internal and external context. The article concludes by considering implications for leadership recruitment and development, with a particular focus on identity work(spaces) and the need to embrace multiple logics. Through such interventions, it is suggested, it may be possible to foster the required levels of inclusion, collaboration and resilience in higher-education leadership to navigate the challenging path(s) ahead.

The world of scholarship and science is currently in disarray and under severe threat. The Institutes for Advanced Study (IAS) have always been internationally recognized symbols for academic freedom and pioneering studies of the highest standards. In the last decades, there has been a remarkable proliferation of these centres, to where they are now a global phenomenon. At their root, these institutes all aim for curiosity-based research and the formation of transnational communities engaged in unobstructed scholarship and science. Alongside the worldwide development of the IAS, there has also arisen a parallel movement, commonly known as Open Science. Seen by many academics, institutions, funding bodies and governments as a much-needed transition in university systems, Open Science implies a significant change in academia. Commencing as an initiative to stimulate discussion on open access publishing, shared data-use, academic recognition and rewards, and the legitimacy of impact factors and university rankings, Open Science increasingly also centres on connecting research and education, and science and society. Both in the IAS, as well as in Open Science, there are important developments with regard to transdisciplinary research and education. As of yet, however, a connection between the ideals and aims of the IAS and Open Science has not explicitly been made in the literature. This article aims to open up a dialogue between these driving academic forces, so that they can face the complex challenges in the world together, and work in unison and synergy towards new academic identities.

Europe faces a persistent research brain drain, undermining its ability to compete globally in science and technology. Drawing on the 2024 CESAER Research Careers Survey of 24 universities across Europe, complemented by in-depth case studies of Lisbon, Twente and Bergen, this article provides new empirical evidence on the conditions shaping research careers in European higher education and research institutions. It shows growth in the research workforce, but also highlights widespread reliance on temporary contracts, with significant variation across institutions and countries. While some universities are innovating with long-term career pathways and co-funding schemes, others remain locked into precarious, project-based hiring. This uneven landscape hampers Europe’s ability to attract and retain talent. We propose three strategic priorities to reverse Europe’s brain drain and achieve balanced brain circulation by 2035: (1) establishing an effective European Research Careers Observatory to monitor job quality and mobility; (2) reforming research assessment to emphasize stability and inclusivity; and (3) expanding EU–national co-funding mechanisms to create sustainable career pathways. We argue for a bold ‘Choose Europe’ initiative, led by the European Commission and supported by member states and institutions, to transform Europe into a magnet for global research talent.

This article explores how asset confiscation and redistribution mechanisms can enhance the operational efficiency and accountability of Ukraine’s patrol police, with the Odesa region serving as a case study. Drawing on comparative insights from the United States, Germany, France, Italy and Canada, the research employs a mixed-methods approach combining legal, empirical, and statistical analysis (2019–2023). The findings indicate that, although patrol police performance and transparency have improved, the lack of a structured framework linking recovered criminal assets to local policing initiatives constrains long-term sustainability. Adapting international best practices, the study proposes legislative and institutional reforms to ensure that confiscated assets are transparently reinvested in patrol operations, officer training, and community safety programmes. The results contribute to ongoing discussions on aligning Ukraine’s asset recovery mechanisms with EU standards and strengthening public trust through accountable resource management.

To date, there has been a long-term debate between the monetarists and Keynesian schools on the elements of inflation in countries, whether monetary or fiscal. Over the years, with the advent of the political economics and the governments’ active participations to the economic and social activities, a new factor, among others, in the name of good governance – say, controlling the corruption level – has arisen as the decider of inflation in countries. This study aims to examine empirically whether money supply, government expenditure (both capital and revenue) and corruption do maintain any long-run associations and short-run dynamics with inflation for the panel of the world’s 20 leading countries. The results reveal a long-run association between the fiscal, monetary, and governance variables, and inflation; and in the short run, there are causal influences from total government expenditure, money supply and corruption to inflation in developed countries, but capital and revenue expenditures, money supply and corruption cause inflation in developing countries.

This article investigates how Central and Eastern European (CEE) cities construct notions of Europeanness and articulate localized European identities through their participation in the European Capital of Culture (ECOC) programme. Focusing on the 17 CEE cities awarded the ECOC title between 2007 and 2028, the article argues that these cities use the ECOC platform not only to reframe their cultural narratives but also to reconcile and strategically re-narrate their communist pasts within a European framework. Employing a post-structuralist discourse analysis, the study identifies two interrelated discursive strategies – unity and diversity – through which cities position themselves in relation to a broader European identity. The findings highlight spatial and temporal variation in how Europeanness is mobilized. This analysis contributes to debates on cultural policy, memory politics, and identity-making in contemporary Europe.