Overview -- From Policy Implementation to Policy Change: A Personal Odyssey -- Implementation Analysis in Higher Education -- The Implementation Game -- National Case Studies -- The Implementation of the Norwegian College Reform -- The Legacy of 1981: An Assessment of the Long-Term Implications of the Reductions in Funding Imposed in 1981 on Institutional Management in UK Higher Education -- From Paper to Practice: Two Reforms and Their Consequences in Dutch Higher Education -- Implementation of Higher Education Policies: A Portuguese Example -- Two Decades of Change in Spanish Universities: Learning the Hard Way -- University Reform in Italy: Fears, Expectations and Contradictions -- Implementing Comprehensive National Higher Education Reforms: The Australian Reforms of Education Minister John Dawkins, 1987–90 -- The Changing Role of the State in Mexican Higher Education: From the Crisis of Ineffectual Populism to New Forms of System Coordination -- Great Expectations, Mixed Governance Approaches and Unintended Outcomes: The Post-1994 Reform of South African Higher Education -- Equity Policy in Australian Higher Education: A Case of Policy Stasis -- Social Dynamics of Higher Education Reforms: The Case of Finland -- Backlash or Modernisation? Two Reform Cycles in Austrian Higher Education -- The Push for Accountability: Policy Influences and Actors in American Higher Education -- From Low Income and Minority Access to Middle Income Affordability: A Case Study of the US Federal Role in Providing Access to Higher Education -- Implementing the Triple Helix: The Academic Response to Changing University-Industry-Government Relations in Sweden -- Profiling Comprehensiveness? Strategy Formulation and Effects of Strategic Programmes at Traditional Universities.

Starting from the now classical book by Ladislav Cerych and Paul Sabatier (1986), the editors present a critical appreciation of that initial work and a review and critical appraisal of current empirical policy research in higher education. In the second part, a set of chapters analyses the effective and specific complexities of the implementation of higher education policies in several countries, offering a wide variety of situations both in terms of duration of implementation, legal objectives, adequacy of causal theories underlying the reforms, adequacy of financial resources and degree of commitment of the main actors of the process. Some of these chapters use alternative theoretical frameworks developed since the 1986 Cerych and Sabatier theorization to interpret the empirical results, and some national cases do not fall within the scope of Cerych and Sabatier’s analysis. The national case studies are: Australia (2), Austria, Finland, Italy, Mexico, The Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, South Africa, Sweden, the UK and the USA.