The aim of this article is to advance research on the impact of New Public Management reforms on higher education governance and the evolving role of university boards. More specifically, the study offers a novel international comparative assessment on how public higher education institutions’ board members perceive institutional decision-making processes and boards’ accountability and representation. We use data from a survey administered to individual board members in public HEIs across four European countries. Our results suggest that under New Public Management reforms boards have indeed gained influence in institutional decision-making processes and both internal and external stakeholders view institutions as more responsive to society’s needs. Yet, the representation of specific business and economic interests is much less pronounced while important differences remain across countries and different stakeholders. The article offers novel comparative insights into the hybridisation, divergence, and partial enactment of NPM principles, demonstrating how reform trajectories remain shaped by path-dependent dynamics within national systems and institutions.

In most European countries, university governance models have undergone modernization, the hallmarks of which manifest in new (modernized) governing bodies (i.e., university boards and councils). These governing bodies hold power, both formal and informal, to influence institutional policy and are frequently seen as institutions encapsulating the changing role of universities. To address a paucity of research on the influence of these governing bodies, the current paper examines the views of university board members in four European countries (Finland, Poland, Portugal and Sweden). It reports and discusses the empirical findings of a large-scale online survey of university board members (N = 2455), focusing on their attitudes towards the new roles of universities amid growing societal, political and economic pressure to revisit their major functions and policy principles.

This study focuses on gender differences in the boards of higher education institutions (HEIs), challenging the notion of inherent differences between men and women in board governance. The article provides a gendered analysis of the perceptions of men and women board members about board governance in Finland, Poland, Portugal and Sweden. Contrary to expectations of diverse perceptions, a survey across these countries’ higher education systems revealed that men and women on boards generally shared similar perspectives on board governance. Factors such as professional background, age, and country context proved more significant than gender. The study indicated nuanced differences between men and women board members, such as women exhibiting a more managerialist mindset and emphasizing sustainability. This research contributes to discussions about gender diversity in board governance, extending the exploration to the unique context of European HEIs. The findings provide insights of (gender) diversity and homogeneity of board members and discusses the possible reasons for the homogeneity. For decision-makers and practitioners these insights provide a starting point to shape gender diversity policies for HEIs.

The increasing dependence on knowledge as a driver of societal development during the twenty-first century has placed the governance of academia in a state of transformation. Increasing pressure for academia to direct the production, proliferation, and utilisation of academic knowledge towards the perceived needs and interests of government, industry and interests groups have manifested themselves in a diverse set of conditions for funding of education and research. For academics in general, and for early career researchers in particular, the result is an increasing dependence on external funding. In response, many universities have taken steps to introduce restrictions on form, content, and publication of research – as well as what types of employments are made available for researchers in the first place.

This study explores the relationship between employment security and reliance on external funding in Finland and Sweden – two countries that have recently adopted tenure-track models. The exploration is based on material from the APIKS survey regarding duration of employment contracts, exposure to expectations, and sources of funding. Based on this analysis, we discuss whether tenure can effectively provide a healthy degree of independence and academic freedom in a funding landscape characterised by a high degree of competition for research funding.

The results of the study provide insights into how the transformation of conditions for academic work interact with fundamental values of academia, and open avenues for further research into how academics deal with the pressures of modern career structures.

The purpose of this thesis is to determine how the combination of expectations on higher education institutions affects their capacity to stake out their own strategic positions. This purpose is established in relation to an ongoing transformation of the conditions of higher education and research through a global development often called the rise of the knowledge society, positioning universities as increasingly important instruments for societal development through their dominion over academic knowledge generation and proliferation. With this growing importance, an increasingly wide variety of expectations from an increasingly wide variety of stakeholders has followed, stemming from within and outside the confines of the university and blurring the lines between the university and its surrounding environment. Taking its point of departure from the multitude of expectations laid upon higher education institutions, the overarching research question of this thesis is as follows: How can a higher education institution consolidate disparate expectations into cohesive positioning?

The thesis approaches this question from four different and complementary angles, guided by an overarching resource dependence perspective that places the spotlight on the management and negotiation of internal and external pressures that provide inputs to the positioning process. This overarching perspective is complemented by insights from theories of organised hypocrisy, the principal–agent problem, crisis management, academic freedom and organisational hybridity. Together, they provide a varied yet consistent image of how uncertainties are managed, and balances are negotiated in the processing of myriad expectations. The empirical focus of the thesis is on Swedish higher education, studied through in-depth interviews exploring internal decision-making processes, survey data generating overviews of systemic patterns, and publicly accessible opinion papers highlighting the interfaces between universities as organisations and their stakeholders.

The results of the thesis show that the internal balancing of expectations systematically reinforces the status quo while changing conditions are met by adaptation, resulting from an internalisation of external pressures through the management of uncertainties. The balance does not move unless necessary, and when necessary, it moves only as much as it must. Thus, higher education institutions respond readily to changing conditions to maintain continued operation but are subject to severe constraints in their capability to actively shape their own strategic positions.

The responsiveness of higher education institutions to pressures means that the way they function becomes fundamentally contextual. Cultural conditions, physical realities and mechanisms of governance matter, because they act as determinants of the way the balancing of expectations moves. Paradoxically, this may make higher education institutions — nominally the most unmanageable of organisations — easier to influence than most, but perhaps not with easily foreseeable results. 

Syftet med denna avhandling är att avgöra hur kombinationen av förväntningar på lärosäten påverkar deras förmåga att utveckla egna strategiska positioner. Detta syfte etableras mot bakgrund av en pågående global förändring av förutsättningarna för högre utbildning och forskning som ofta beskrivs i termer av kunskapssamhällets framväxt. Denna utveckling placerar lärosätena som allt viktigare instrument för samhällsutveckling via deras kontroll över skapande och spridning av akademisk kunskap. Med denna växande betydelse följer också en allt större variation av förväntningar från en allt större variation av intressenter, som härstammar från såväl inom som utanför lärosätets väggar, och suddar ut själva gränserna mellan universitetet och dess omgivning. Med utgångspunkt i mångfalden av förväntningar som riktas mot lärosätena formuleras en övergripande forskningsfråga för avhandlingen enligt följande: Hur kan ett lärosäte konsolidera disparata förväntningar till en sammanhållen positionering?

Avhandlingen angriper denna fråga från fyra olika och kompletterande håll, vägledda av ett övergripande resursberoendeperspektiv som sätter fokus på hur interna och externa tryck hanteras och förhandlas i positioneringsprocessen. Detta övergripande perspektiv kompletteras av insikter från teorier rörande organiserat hyckleri, huvudman-agentproblemet, krishantering, akademisk frihet och organisatorisk hybriditet. Tillsammans tillhandahåller dessa perspektiv en varierad men konsekvent bild av hur osäkerheter behandlas, och balanser förhandlas, vid hanteringen av mångfalden av förväntningar. Det empiriska fokuset ligger på den svenska högskolesektorn, som studeras via djuplodande intervjuer som utforskar interna beslutsprocesser, enkätdata som ger en överblick över systematiska mönster, samt offentligt tillgängliga åsiktsdokument som belyser gränssnitten mellan universitet som organisationer och deras intressenter.

Avhandlingens resultat visar att den interna balanseringen av förväntningar systematiskt förstärker status quo, medan förändrade förutsättningar hanteras genom anpassning – orsakat av en internalisering av externa tryck via processer för hantering av osäkerheter. Balansen rubbas inte om det inte är nödvändigt, och när den rubbas sker det endast i den utsträckning som det krävs. Lärosätena är därmed tydligt responsiva gentemot förändrade förutsättningar i syfte att upprätthålla fortsatt verksamhet, men är föremål för starka begränsningar av deras förmåga att aktivt forma sina egna strategiska positioner.

Lärosätenas responsivitet gentemot olika typer av tryck innebär att deras funktionssätt i grunden blir kontextuellt betonat – kulturella förhållanden, fysiska realiteter och styrningsmekanismer spelar roll eftersom de avgör i vilken riktning balanseringen av förväntningar rör sig. Paradoxalt nog kan detta göra lärosäten — nominellt bland de mer svårstyrda organisationerna — lättare att påverka än många andra organisationer, men inte nödvändigtvis med enkelt förutsägbara resultat.

Under de senaste fyrtio åren har regeringen regelbundet lämnat propositioner som målar upp forsknings- och utvecklingspolitikens inriktning för de kommande åren. Nästa upplaga förväntas under 2024, och inför detta har regeringen bjudit en stor mängd intressenter i samhället att inkomma med inspel som kan utgöra underlag för arbetet med propositionen. Avsikten med denna rapport är att skapa en överblick över vilka typer av frågor som har legat i fokus för de inkomna inspelen, inom vilka områden samstämmighet föreligger och var perspektiven skiljer sig åt.

Rapportens material utgörs huvudsakligen av ett urval omfattande 77 av de inkomna inspelen, kompletterat med anteckningar från gruppdiskussioner vid SUHF:s dialogseminarium mellan forskningsfinansiärer och lärosäten i januari 2024. Urvalet av inspel baseras på det tidigare urvalet för en motsvarande rapport som beställdes av SUHF inför forskningspropositionen 2020, för att möjliggöra jämförelser av hur ställningstaganden har förändrats mellan inspelsprocesserna. Förslag och ställningstaganden från inspelen och diskussionsanteckningarna har klassificerats till gemensamma och återkommande teman, som sedan har utgjort grund för identifiering av mönster, vattendelare och samstämmighet i den forskningspolitiska diskussionen.

Fyra breda kategorier av frågor identifieras och presenteras utifrån graden av enighet i problembeskrivningar och lösningsförslag: frågor där såväl frågor och svar är gemensamma för många aktörer, där frågor är gemensamma men svaren skiljer sig, där frågorna skiljer sig åt men svaren sammanfaller, och där såväl frågor som svar varierar och därmed bara lyfts av enstaka aktörer.

Bland gemensamma frågor och svar återfinns breda diskussioner kring internationalisering, infrastruktur och forskningspolitiska normer. Internationaliseringsdiskussionen har fått starkare inslag av säkerhets- och riskperspektiv, infrastrukturfrågor omfattas av en övergripande känsla av vilsenhet, och forskningspolitiken uppfattas som orienterad mot en norm där forskning bedrivs vid fullskaliga, statliga lärosäten – och därmed lämnar andra forskande organisationer utanför.

De gemensamma frågorna som får olika svar omfattar i första hand akademisk frihet och institutionell autonomi samt finansieringsmodeller. Det råder bred enighet kring att friheten är en nödvändig grundbult för systemet, men huruvida den grundbulten bäst säkras via reglering eller avreglering är mer av en öppen fråga. Frågor kring finansieringsmodeller präglas av en gemensam målbild av kvalitet och excellens, där också frihet utgör en förutsättning, men vilken betydelse man lägger i begreppen varierar – och denna variation ger upphov till olika lösningsförslag för hur resurserna bör fördelas.

Gemensamma svar som grundar sig på olika frågor kretsar också i första hand kring finansiering, där samma föreslagna mekanismer kan motiveras av radikalt olika problembeskrivningar och värdeprioriteringar. Det finns en mångfald av argument som tenderar att mynna ut i en betydligt smalare uppsättning lösningsförslag, men det innebär inte nödvändigtvis att ställningstagandena blir praktiskt kompatibla, eftersom grundläggande värdemotsättningar kan förväntas komma till ytan vid utformning av mer detaljerad tillämpning.

Olika frågor med olika svar omfattar förslag om specifika satsningar på särskilda forskningsområden eller organisatoriska värden – det finns ett tydligt mönster av att organisationer föreslår satsningar som ligger nära deras egen verksamhet, vilket gör sammanställningen högst urvalsberoende. Samhällsförändringar under de senare åren gör sig dock påminda via förslag om satsningar på AI och totalförsvar.

Den forskningspolitiska diskussionen är komplex, och lider av att orienteras kring gemensamma termer som fylls med olika begreppsligt innehåll – vilket ger upphov till risk för synbar enighet där starka värdemotsättningar finns, och synbara motsättningar där en gemensam grund vore möjlig.

Regeringen tillsatte i augusti 2023 en utredning med uppdraget att lägga fram förslag om hur universitets och högskolors kompetens i säkerhetsfrågor kan öka, mot bakgrund av ett förändrat säkerhetsläge. Fokus för uppdraget låg på styrelsernas förutsättningar och roller i förhållande till lärosätenas säkerhetsarbete, där informationssäkerhet ingår. Denna rapport, författad på uppdrag av Swedish University information SECurity group (SUSEC), syftar till att belysa hur frågor kring informationssäkerhet har vägts in i den process som omger utredningen.

I rapporten analyseras 53 remissvar från 32 lärosäten, 2 tillkommande från Sveriges universitets- och högskoleförbund (SUHF), samt den promemoria, de remissinstruktioner och det utredningsdirektiv som ligger till grund för remissvaren. Tillsammans formar dessa en bild av hur processen stegvis har ramats in från att regeringen lyfte frågan till att lärosätenas inspel inkom.

Analysen visar att resonemangen kring säkerhetsfrågorna följer en omvänd trattstruktur, där hotbilden beskrivs i förhållandevis konkreta och smala ordalag ofta inriktade mot risker kopplade till informationssäkerhetsaspekter, och perspektivet sedan övergår till ett mer abstrakt och allmänt säkerhetsperspektiv när riskhanteringsåtgärder och förändringsförslag diskuteras. Informationssäkerhetsfrågor får därmed ett betydligt större utrymme i den ena änden av processen än den andra, och fungerar framför allt som bakgrund för att motivera att man antingen genomför eller avstår från att genomföra breda säkerhetsåtgärder som inte specifikt riktas mot informationssäkerhetsområdet.

With the rise of the knowledge society, international conflict has become increasingly concerned with information and intellectual property – highlighting the growing importance of knowledge as a tool to serve purposes ranging from maintaining colonial links or political ties to facilitating peace and promoting trade. For academia, this has placed issues of internationalization firmly in the spotlight of internal and external stakeholders.

Throughout this process, internationalization has been conceptualized differently across higher education institutions and contexts, with institutions integrating different international and intercultural dimensions into the purpose and functions of education. Internationalization ofcurriculum, research, and service continue to be some of the fundamental factors in higher education where best practices are adopted and contextualized into different educational systems for efficiency and increase in productivity. After several decades of implementation of varying internationalization practices and policies, there is no question that it has transformed higher education across different borders. A plethora of studies have examined how internationalization has built on local, national, and regional policies and practices to harness, complement, and harmonize local activities in institutions.

Recent developments have, however, upset the status quo and formed the basis of new directions for both the utilization of academia in international relations and the use of internationalization as a tool for academic development. The COVID-19 pandemic brought a shift in patterns of mobility and digitalization, whose long-term effects are still an open question, and geopolitical instability has brought concepts such as responsible internationalization into the forefront of political and academic discourse. Another recent development is the rise of neo-nationalism, driven by autocratic regimes with anti-immigrant policies and economic protectionism.

With the road ahead for the internationalization of academia being uncertain, it becomes even more important to understand where the road has led so far. To understand where we are going, we must know where we came from. The APIKS survey, which was carried out in 2018 before the massive upheavals of the pandemic and heightened international conflict came into full swing, provides the ideal material for this purpose. Therefore, this study uses data from the survey to examine how internationalization has contextualized higher education curricula, research, services, and professional development programs across different countries. The study employs a comparative research design to conduct single and cross-case analyses of how the concept of internationalization has been contextualized. Using descriptive and inferential statistics such as ANOVA and multiple regression, the study's results will provide insights into how internationalization is integrated across borders, contexts, and disciplines to help provide a holistic picture of the situation. The results will also help develop a conceptual framework for understanding the perceived strategies of integrating internationalization across different contexts and open further avenues to explore how these differences could help support effective, efficient integration of internationalization.

This paper aims to examine the views of university board members in five European countries (Hungary, Finland, Poland, Portugal and Sweden). It reports and discusses the empirical findings from the survey of university board/council members. Special attention is paid to the views and attitudes of council/board members toward the new role of universities amid growing societal, political and economic pressure to revisit its major functions and policy principles. To this aim, the study addresses two research questions: (1) What are the most important principles for board/council members regarding university institutional policy? and (2) Do external and internal members have different accounts of a university and its institutional policy?

The study fits into a broader discussion about the changing role of universities amid the rise of the knowledge society and economy. One of the most important proxies of the changing role of universities and simultaneously a driver for institutional changes is institutional governance. In most European countries the model of university governance has undergone modernization and the hallmarks of those changes are the new (modernized) governing bodies - university boards and councils. They have received formal and informal power to influence institutional policy and are frequently seen as bodies encapsulating the changing role of universities. With this in mind, it is both incredibly interesting and highly relevant to learn what members of these governing bodies see as binding principles for university policy because of their prominent role in building strategic agency.  

We utilize data from a survey undertaken between May and September of 2023 across the university boards of five European countries: Hungary, Finland, Poland, Portugal, and Sweden (N= 2455). The analysis is based on data derived from a seven-item question specifically related to the principles that shall be considered in the institutional policy. For testing the proposed hypotheses, we operationalize the dependent variables through 7 categories that reflect different following principles: national policy priorities, regional development agendas, UN sustainable goals, competitiveness and university rankings, maximization of external funding opportunities, employability of students, and freedom for lecturers and researchers to explore themes of their choice. The respondents were asked to individually rate each of those seven principles along a disagree-agree scale of a 5-point Likert type. The selected categories were brought up by authors as a result of prior reflexive discussions that shed light on the challenges of international comparative studies that enable comparison across varied country settings.

We found that, in the view of board/council members, the most important principles of university policy are ‘employability of students’ (81%) and ‘freedom for lecturers and researchers to explore themes of their choice’ (80,7%). This demonstrates that greater social accountability does not have to come at the cost of traditional academic values. Interestingly, the least important goal for a university is considered to be to align its policy with ‘national policy priorities’ (47%) (with an outlier of Hungary). As to the second research question, the analysis also suggests that external and internal members share (rather) similar accounts of the principles of university policy within given national contexts. However, the study also demonstrates and discusses remarkable differences between individual European countries under the study.

The survey had high response rates (around 30% except for Hungary), but it was performed in only five European countries. Thus, the empirical findings should be interpreted with caution when attempting to identify general European trends.

The political discussion about new (modernized) governing bodies in university governance is of vital importance, and the study provides clear and solid empirical evidence about board/council members’ actual perceptions about overseeing their institutions and their principles. 

The study draws on data from the very first international comparative studies on university board/council members. The existing body of knowledge about university boards/councils is primarily focused on structural and legal analysis and otherwise presents little empirical evidence. Our study is empirical by nature and discusses evidence collected from five European countries.  

Academics have complex and competing identities. They are part of a global community of scholars within their field or discipline, with its own particular myths, ideologies, cultures, languages, and rules of conduct. They are also part of a philosophical community with shared ideas about the nature of knowledge and the world, where the subject matter takes more of a backseat. In addition, they are part of a national context – sometimes even several – as citizens and residents, a local and regional context as members of society, and an institutional or departmental context as colleagues. With the emergence of the knowledge society, both the number and variety of contexts that an academic is expected to relate to have increased significantly.

This paper explores two aspects of this circumstance: one is the dominant locales of academic identity, and the other is the role of job security in driving that dominance. Using data from the APIKS survey, the paper examines the relative importance of affiliations with the academic discipline, the department, and the institution respectively for academics in participating countries – gauging the balance between global and local environments for the importance of identity formation in different national contexts. Drawing on insights from organisation theory, where job security has been found to be a strong determinant of organisational commitment, the paper analyses the effect of the duration of employment contracts for the distribution between attachment to the global, institutional, and departmental contexts. Does secure employment foster a stronger sense of belonging to the local environment due to long-term commitment, or does it enable gradual entrenchment in a specialised field that strengthens ties to the global community – and how is this relationship affected by the national context?

The results of the study provide insights into how and where academic communities are formed, as well as practical guidance for leadership functions at higher education institutions regarding how employment policies may be used as tools for building resilient and cohesive local cultures and environments. The study opens avenues of further research into how academics perceive the relationship between the formation of their academic identities and the practical circum-stances of their working conditions.