Legislation in the 1970s, 1990s and 2003 made major changes to the status and operations of Danish universities and the role they should play in creating different imaginaries of Denmark and its place in the world. In the education literature, 'institutional autonomy' is key indicator of shifts in the idea and role of the university but this was not always the term used in Denmark. Instead, key terms are the 'self-steering' university, the 'self-owning' university, 'aim and frame' steering and 'commando-way' steering. The Danish words are explored ethnographically, and 'autonomy' is used as an analytical, not an emic, term. Whereas institutional autonomy literally means self-legislating, the analysis starts from the premise that it is never absolute: it always involves a negotiated relationship between the university and government, and these negotiations are influenced by how 'the university' is constituted at different times. This article focuses on changes to the legal construction of the university, its relation to government, internal organisation and leadership in different reforms. Each period will explore the ways in which the university was (or was not) 'autonomous', and why each new status was thought suitable for the role universities were to pay in the realisation of different visions of Denmark's future.