Recent shifts in university governance have relied on increased autonomy. Within this context, the enhanced role attributed to governance boards at the expense of academic bodies and the role of external stakeholders has gained momentum. With the aim of understanding the extent of the influence of external stakeholders at the institutional level,…

This paper aims at looking at governance instruments beyond managerial technicality. It intends to do so by analysing the impact of governance reforms on the universities autonomy assumed as a regulation instrument to politically steer systems and institutions. The regulation efforts undertaken at the European and national levels reflect a trend…

The implementation of the governance reform of Portuguese higher education has been developed under the influence of "new public management" resulting in the loss of collegial governance. Additionally, the need for meta-governance of the higher education system and institutions to monitor institutional performance against policy…

The 1988 University Autonomy Act conferred Portuguese universities with a considerable degree of autonomy and designed a governance system based on collegiality. Strong participation of academic and non-academic staffs and students in decisions became the rule and democratic elections of all individual or collective governance bodies were the…

In this paper the authors argue that the use of the Open Method of Coordination (OMC) in the implementation of the Bologna process presents coordination problems that do not allow for the full coherence of the results. As the process is quite complex, involving three different levels (European, national and local) and as the final actors in the…

There have been calls to increase the autonomy of higher education institutions in Europe for a number of years. They have been counterbalanced by demands for increasing accountability and a European quality assurance system. In London in 2007, the European ministers of education decided to implement a European register of accredited quality…

Discusses how the relationship between governments and higher education has been changing in Europe over the last few decades, with governments using an array of market and market-like mechanisms instead of traditional regulation mechanisms. Suggests that despite the changes, institutional autonomy is still facing significant government…