Within the scholarship on internationalisation in higher education, transnational networks are seldom mentioned and even less studied. However, recent EU policy initiatives have attempted to enhance this form of internationalisation in order to tackle issues of employability, skills and competences and innovative curriculum development. Within European transnational networks, higher education institutions are posited to play a central role, as they are considered engines of socio-economic development in the so-called Knowledge Economy. To explore empirically the significance of higher education institutions in such networks, this article presents an analysis of 991 European networks promoting educational innovation within the Erasmus+ programme between 2014 and 2018. We analyse the role of higher education institutions by network size, governance, membership, and associated types of innovation. Our findings confirm expectations about the pivotal role of higher education institutions. However, expectations should be significantly nuanced, as higher education institutions tend to lead comparatively small networks. Also, higher education institutions tend to favour general innovative themes rather than specialised topics. Our contribution is threefold. First, it increases our understanding of higher education institutions' capacity to engage with multi-level, multi-actor, multi-country innovation networks. Second, it sheds light on how higher education institutions have engaged with different priorities in EU's modernisation agenda. Finally, our paper extends the scholarship on internationalisation in higher education by looking at transnational networks in teaching and learning as an emerging phenomenon.

中文翻译：

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高等教育机构在跨国网络中进行教与学创新的作用：以伊拉斯mus +计划为例

在有关高等教育国际化的奖学金中，很少提及甚至很少研究跨国网络。但是，最近的欧盟政策举措试图增强这种形式的国际化，以解决就业能力，技能和能力以及创新课程开发的问题。在欧洲跨国网络中，高等教育机构被认为发挥着核心作用，因为它们被认为是所谓的知识经济中社会经济发展的引擎。为了从经验上探索高等教育机构在此类网络中的重要性，本文对2014年至2018年间991个欧洲网络在Erasmus +计划内促进教育创新的情况进行了分析。我们通过网络规模，治理，成员资格以及相关的创新类型。我们的发现证实了对高等教育机构的关键作用的期望。但是，由于高等教育机构倾向于领导相对较小的网络，因此期望应该有很大的细微差别。同样，高等教育机构倾向于支持一般性的创新主题，而不是专业性的主题。我们的贡献是三倍。首先，它增加了我们对高等教育机构参与多层次，多主体，多国家创新网络能力的理解。其次，它阐明了高等教育机构如何在欧盟的现代化议程中处理不同的优先事项。最后，