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As part of the Erasmus+ project “Modernisation of Higher Education Institutions through Enhancement of Human Resources Management Function” (HRMinHEI), the document “An overview of recent European and national policies in regard to human resources management (HRM) in higher education institutions (HEIs) within European Higher Education Area” was published in July 2017.

This report presents an overview of national policies in regard to HRM in the sector within the context of broader European-level policy. The overview is based on a conceptual framework and literature review of existing HRM literature, which will also feed the subsequent phases and outputs of the project HRMinHEI.

This paper provides a theoretical foundation and framework by detailing ten key dimensions of HRM, and illustrates their application in the context of HEIs. The report also provides a short discussion of existing European-level policies concerning HRM in the field of higher education. Furthermore, the report shows a content analysis for Austrian, Croatian and Finnish national regulation and policies related to HRM in higher education.

Only a few publications, introduced in this report, deal with this management field in Europe. The report clearly demonstrates the differences in function and services of HRM at HEIs, at least in the mentioned three countries. This first overview of international (EU) and national policies and HR regulations helps develop further HR capabilities and capacities at system, institutional and individual level.


The Croatian Agency for Science and Higher Education is the leader of the project HRMinHEI, in partnership with higher education institutions from Croatia and Europe: Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences University of Rijeka and University College Algebra from Croatia, Danube University Krems from Austria and University of Tampere from Finland. The project started in September 2016 and it will last until September 2018. The purpose of the project is the strengthening of Human Resources Management in higher education institutions and the development of innovative self-assessment tools for benchmarking Human Resources Management.