A common theme within the field of education regionalism is the concept of Education Hubs (EH) or Higher Education Area (HEA). In this article, we conceptualize Education Hub (EH) to include both EH and HEA. An EH refers to a group of states or universities forming a cooperative by aligning their higher education institutions (HEI) towards a larger center for excellence in higher education (Knight, 2011, 2013; Pham, 2017; Rottleb & Kleibert, 2022) . The Bologna Process is an important agreement fostering recent EH developments. The intention behind the Bologna Process was to reform higher education in Europe to promote educational quality in the region, which would then contribute to a highly educated labor force that could sustain European growth (Ertl, 2013) . Recent research has shifted focus from European Regional Education Hubs (REH) towards Asia to investigate EH that have being established or developed further in this region (Chou & Ravinet, 2017; Knight, 2015a, 2015b; Zahavi & Friedman, 2019) .

However, most research focuses on how REH strengthen regional ties, increase the highly educated human resource pool of the region, and create prominent university identities that attract more students and provide “mutual development” across the Asian region (Ayoubi & Massoud, 2011; Chou & Ravinet, 2015; Dang, 2017; Fadeeva & Mochizuki, 2010; Raguž & Pisker, 2011) . Recent trends in regional student mobility within EH have arguably received less attention. This article addresses this limitation by 1) discussing various REH and 2) highlighting recent trends of mobility and institutional incentive (motivation) to establish these REH.

Due to the exploratory nature of this research, data collection focused on formal documents and webpages of the REH investigated in this study. Analysing formal documents and webpages allows the study to systematically elicit meaning, gain understanding, and develop empirical knowledge without the researcher directly intervening in the organization (Bowen, 2009) . As REH are regional institutions, the formal documents and webpages legitimises the existence of such organizations by providing the identity, members and goals of the REH (Cardno, 2019) .

REH webpages were analysed to access information on organizational agreements, membership details, as well as general goals of the REH. A total of 9 webpages were analysed to get a deeper understanding of the REH. Only the official webpages of each REH were considered for analysis in order to reflect the organizational characteristics of each REH (see Table 1).

Webpage data was analysed, using unstructured webpage data mining. Unstructured webpage data mining is widely practiced to identify a current knowledge base found in databases about a specific field of study (Jayamalini & Ponnavaikko, 2017; Tayefi et al., 2021) . Data included texts, tables, graphs, and figures from the REH webpages and formed the research corpus for this paper. The information collected identifies the organization as an official institution, highlights the trends and motivation for establishing a REH.

REH in Europe

In general, REH are state initiated foreign policy initiatives that utilize universities as members within the hub to develop a regional identity of higher education (Cheng et al., 2016; Knight, 2011, 2013; Rezasyah et al., 2017) . To better understand the development of current REH, its membership and goals/objectives will be explored to identify the actors, guidelines, and goals of the REH. Each REH will be organized into specific groups (regions). Table 1 provides a summary of the active REH initiatives that have been initiated across the world, its member states and member universities.

The EHEA was established in 1999, after the Bologna Declaration, and includes universities from its 49 member states, mainly centered in Europe. According to the Bologna Process (1999), the goals of the EHEA are to 1) ensure a three-cycle education system across the member states, consisting of bachelors, masters and doctoral studies, 2) mutually recognize qualifications, credits and learning periods completed within the EHEA to foster student and faculty mobility, and 3) improve higher education quality assurance to promote the EHEA as a center for higher education.

REH in Asia

In the Asian region, the REH landscape is more diverse and fluid. In 1995, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) established the first REH in Asia, the ASEAN University Network (AUN). Membership includes all 10 ASEAN member states (see Table 1) and their 193 universities (see Table A1). The selection process of university membership is not clearly outlined in the official documents, but it is mandatory that all selected universities agree to accomplish the overall goals of the AUN. These goals are to 1) advance curricula and learning approaches, 2) improve higher education quality assurance, 3) foster student skill development through cross-border collaboration, 4) enhance research cooperation and 5) develop AUN as a networking platform (AUN, 2022) . AUN initiated various thematic networks and projects between member universities to achieve its wider goals (Knight, 2012; Rezasyah et al., 2017) .

In 2012, seventeen years after the establishment of the AUN, the ASEAN+3 University Network (ASEAN+3 UNet) was established. The ASEAN+3 UNet is considered to be a branch of the AUN including only the top 30 universities from the AUN (ASEAN) in addition to 21 universities from the three (+3) countries China, Japan and Korea (Hawkins, 2012) . The goals of the ASEAN+3 UNet encompass similar goals as the AUN, but are limited to its members only and are not extended to other AUN universities. It should be noted that in 2010, China, Japan and Korea developed a separate tripartite REH known as Campus Asia. Campus Asia includes one university from each of the three countries and require the cohort of students to spend at least a year in each of the designated universities. The intention behind this REH is to offer a combined degree in policy studies across the three nations in East-Asia (Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, 2022) . The latest REH in Asia is the Asian University Alliance (AUA), established in 2017. Membership of the AUA consist of 13 member states, represented only by a small number of selected public universities. The AUA has four stated objectives, which are to 1) promote the mobility of students and staff, 2) strengthen collaboration and joint innovation, 3) establish a platform for discussion of higher education policies and strategies, and 4) report about higher education across Asia (Cabanda et al., 2019; Gruby & Campbell, 2013) . All university members in the AUA work towards achieving these goals and to invest in the development of higher education within the Asian continent (AUA, 2022) .

REH in Africa

The situation in the African region is quite different with previous research only mentioning one REH. The Association of African Universities (AAU), established in 1967, consists of 49 countries in Africa with a total of 420 member universities (AAU, 2022) (see Table 2). Membership status is split into 378 full members and 42 associate members. Full members are universities that are located and based on the African continent, while associate members are universities that only have satellite campuses in Africa, but are based outside of Africa (Turner Johnson, 2013) . The AAU membership includes both private and public HEIs (Johnson et al., 2011) . The AAU objectives are to work as a platform to 1) promote networking between universities and regional organizations in Africa to improve teaching, accreditation, HEI management, and research, 2) to encourage cooperation amongst universities to mutually recognize qualifications, and 3) to advocate for universities taking on the role of public fora for a dialogue on issues around higher education (Mihyo, 2008) . According to its constitution (AAU, 2022) , members are required to participate in the AAU General Conference once every four years to discuss the AAU policies. However, the process of AAU policy implementation (the outcomes of the conference) is unclear.

REH in Latin America

In Latin America, two REH are currently active. First, the Central American University Council (CSUCA), established in 1948, amongst the eight states within the geographical boundaries of Central America (Guatemala, Belize, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama, and the Dominican Republic). Membership is exclusive only to the 21 public universities within its 8 member states. The goals of the CSUCA are to 1) foster the improvement, innovation and regional integration of public higher education, 2) defend the autonomy of public universities in the region and 3) build a platform for networking in research, teaching and management practices amongst the member universities (CSUCA, 2022) . According to CSUCA’s (2022) operating rules, each member must implement the policies of the CSUCA and maintain the autonomy of the university within Central America. The second REH in Latin America is the Montevideo Group Universities’ Association (AUGM), including Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay. Located amongst the most southern countries in Latin America, its membership consists of 27 public universities within the member states that are required to remain autonomous and self-governed within their respective states. According to the AUGM (2022) , the objectives of the organization are to 1) collaborate and strengthen research/innovation of its members to develop high capacity human resources, 2) to assist in university management and, 3) to support student/staff mobility and research collaboration within the REH.

Trends in REH

To better understand REH, the trends of the current forms of REH need to be identified to indicate the directions in which REH are developing. Based on the literature on REH, it can be argued that REH generally work within the geographical boundaries of a specific region. However, certain trends have been identified within the formal REH documents. These documents outline trends of mobility within the hub and motivations for initially establishing the hub. This section discusses the trends in mobility across REH, identified in the results above and highlights the various motivations for establishing the REH.

Regional Education Hubs (REH) research in general is a relatively new field of study in education regionalism. Identifying the various REH around the world allowed this paper to explore membership, trends and goals of the hubs. The membership arrangements of the various REH highlighted that states and universities both participate in the REH. Across REH, mobility of faculty, students, and staff is promoted as a means of connecting HEIs in the region. This allows for research collaboration, collective resource allocation and academic development, student exchanges, and sharing of management practices on a regional scale. Such mobility schemes strengthen regional progress in higher education and encourage knowledge sharing amongst the members of the hub. However, there are different reasons for developing REH. In Europe, the REH was developed to attract international students to strengthen higher education and human resources in the region. In Asia, REH were developed to promote the region as a new area of academic excellence through the promotion of research and innovation. The unique motivation of REH in Africa and LAC was identified to be a collective approach of higher education institutions to remain autonomous from the state.

The significance of these findings in the field of education regionalism research suggests that REH around the world have been established predominantly for the promotion of regional progress. As REH operate towards achieving certain goals, states and universities collaborate on a regional level to foster economic and intellectual prosperity, motivated by either academic research, innovation, university autonomy or the decreasing human resource pool in a region. This collective approach indicates that countries are recognizing the benefits of merging their efforts in higher education on a regional scale rather than independently competing with each other towards the same goals. Although there are similarities amongst REH, the idea of most REH simply “mimicking” the Bologna Process of 1999 portrays a very limited and limiting perspective on educational regionalism. This paper has shown that REH are far more complex than so far theorized, going beyond ideas of regional progress and resource sharing.

The authors declare no conflicts of interest regarding the publication of this paper.

Takinana, A., & Baars, R. C. (2023). Education Regionalism: Trends in Regional Education Hubs. Creative Education, 14, 2642-2662. https://doi.org/10.4236/ce.2023.1413169