Abstract
This chapter describes the national reform processes of six European countries: Austria, Denmark, Finland, France, the Netherlands and Portugal. The approach opted for here has been to give the voice to the individual university rectors and officials that played an important role during the reform processes. By hearing their stories, we obtain a vivid narrative of the government drivers of reform and of the rationales of the institutions as main partners in the reform processes. These narratives are complemented by and contrasted with a review of the literature on the subject.
Without ignoring the elements of subjectivity in these individual reports of the reform processes, all of the contributors, in their capacity as practitioners, provide a highly specific vision of the contexts in which the reforms have taken place, of the main drivers, of the paths and tempos taken by the reform processes, of the dilemmas faced and the decisions taken, of the quality of the dialogue between policy makers and institutional leaders and of the advances made towards a new configuration in the relations between the education authority and the universities. It is thanks to these unique insights that the readers can appreciate the details of the reform processes as they were experienced by those directly involved in instigating them.
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Notes
- 1.
Schenker-Wicki, a professor of business administration of the University of Zurich, is now the rector of the University of Basel/Switzerland.
- 2.
The ‘research thematic alliances’ are consultative bodies gathering public research actors with the national funding body (ANR). Their mission is to outline the main R&D priorities for the country. Following those thematic priorities, five of these alliances have already been created (health and life sciences, energy, IT, environmental sciences and humanities).
- 3.
One of the last essays by the late David Watson (2012) offers an interesting example of the importance of category selection, with a clear demonstration of the limitations of international comparison by rankings. ‘What does not count in international league tables: Teaching quality, Social mobility, Services to business and the community, Rural interests, Other public services, Collaboration and The public interest. What does count is: Research, Media interest, Graduate destinations, Infrastructure and International ‘executive’ recruitment’.
- 4.
This Wet op het hoger onderwijs en wetenschappelijk onderzoek (WHW) was accepted by parliament in 1992 and became operational in 1993. It fundamentally changed the division of roles between government and institutions for higher education and research.
- 5.
The two operations (Taakverdeling & Concentratie 1982, Selectieve Krimp & Groei 1987) were the last such projects that were run at a national level by the government’s Department of Education and Research.
- 6.
Traditionally, higher professional schools had been small, specialised and local. In the mid-1970s there were about 400 such schools, each of them directly answerable to the department (insofar as they were public and funded from public sources). At the end of a grand merging and rescaling operation, some 40 much larger and mostly multidisciplinary institutions remained.
- 7.
VSNU (Association of Dutch Universities, founded in 1985) and HBO-Raad (Council for Higher Professional Education, founded in 1976).
- 8.
Parallel to developments in the university sector, similar changes took place in the polytechnic sector (since 1993 governed by the same legal framework).
- 9.
At the time trade unions and associations of employers played no key role in the process of system change. They intervened only to lobby for their specific interests (academic job protection, labour market innovation).
- 10.
Total research budget of all 41 hogescholen was approx. 100 m euros in 2014.
- 11.
All university research, including university medical centres.
- 12.
Chinese borden – financiële stromen en prioriteringsbeleid in het Nederlandse universitaire onderzoek, 2016, 36 (www.rathenau.nl).
- 13.
Review of Tertiary Education, a project conducted between 2004 and 2008 (www.oecd.org/edu/tertiary/review).
- 14.
See Noorda (2013) from which I have utilised some key passages in the following paragraphs.
- 15.
These are specialised vocational institutions, on average of small size, focused on nurse training, tourism, etc.
- 16.
The private sector is composed of a large number of specialised HEIs, providing university or vocational education, mostly of a small size in enrolments. These cover mainly areas such as teacher and nurse training, health technicians, social sciences, business and management.
- 17.
- 18.
For a more detailed analysis, see Magalhães and Santiago (2012).
- 19.
For a detailed analysis, see Rosa and Sarrico (2012).
- 20.
For more details, see Teixeira and Koryakina (2013).
- 21.
The first steps for the implementation of a student social support system in Portuguese higher education were taken after the April 1974 revolution, aiming at the system’s democratisation by giving grants to students from disadvantaged backgrounds. In 1980 a comprehensive student support system was established for the first time by creating an autonomous service in each university or university institute. These services were given more financial and administrative autonomy than universities, and a flexible human resources management system was established, given that the staff working for students’ residences and canteens was hired under private law. The aforementioned growing institutional autonomy, brought about by the reforms of the late 1980s, also had an impact on the management of the student support system. In 1988, the University Autonomy Act conferred on public universities an increased degree of autonomy and responsibility for staff and students.
- 22.
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Winckler, G. et al. (2018). National Reform Processes: Examples of Six European Countries. In: Krüger, K., Parellada, M., Samoilovich, D., Sursock, A. (eds) Governance Reforms in European University Systems. Educational Governance Research, vol 8. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-72212-2_2
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