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.