Opening up Higher Education in the Digital Age

On the Potential to Unite the Social Dimension and the Digitalisation of Higher Education in Europe

The ‘social dimension’ and the ‘digitalisation’ of higher education should not be approached as two isolated challenges but rather as a potential opportunity to increase diversity and open up higher education through the use of technology. In this article, the authors sketch out the role of the social dimension in higher education and discuss the impetus that the so-called European refugee crisis has had in this respect. The findings of their work at Kiron Open Higher Education with refugees in Germany are subsequently used to argue for more courageous, technology-enhanced approaches to strengthening the social dimension of higher education. In conclusion, the authors argue for a more ambitious European Higher Education Area that makes the best use of digitalisation for opening up higher education to disadvantaged students. This includes developing strategies, policies and evaluation measures that look at digitalisation not on its own but as an integral part of the social dimension as well as other dimensions of higher education.