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…

Scholars have documented a tendency of (semi-)authoritarian regimes to undermine university autonomy, mainly through organizational (de jure) changes. This paper presents a case study of a publicly triggered plagiarism investigation by the University of Belgrade into the doctoral thesis of the Serbian Minister of Finance, one of the key members of…

In late 2015, the Lao government finalized its five-year National Socio-economic Development Plan 2016-2020 (NSEDP) to assist Lao PDR in meeting its goal of graduating from the ranks of Least Developed Countries status by 2020. The NSEDP is supported by a five-year Education Sector Development Plan (2016-2020) and subsequent higher education…

In this qualitative study, the form and features of institutional governance in private universities in China are investigated. Using a comparative case study approach, it focuses on two private universities, each with differing institutional histories and forms of governance. It draws on thematic analysis of extensive documentation relating to…

Over the past decade, universities in the People's Republic of China have notably progressed in international rankings. Most of the existing literature interested in this development describes the adoption of university rankings in China as a recent import of a global institution, and as being driven by a governmental agenda that seeks to bolster…

In its pursuit of global university rankings, Indonesia introduced a series of higher education policies, one in 2014 to grant autonomy to a select group of universities, and another in 2017 to tie financial and promotional incentives to scientific publications for all researchers. To examine scientific productivity surrounding these policies, we…

Higher education offers the potential to support glonacal (global, national, and local) development. This study presents new empirical and conceptual insights into the ways in which higher education can help to achieve and exceed the outcomes enshrined in the Sustainable Development Goals. Open-ended online surveys were used to learn how academics…

This mixed-methods ethnographic case study examines the socio-historical origins and current lived experiences of students at one Russian university to understand the role of a university education as an environmental factor in the development of a civic consciousness. Findings suggest that the institution has attempted to introduce liberal civic…

National higher education systems have undergone a series of transformations in recent decades. Since the 1980s, regulatory systems governing higher education have witnessed a number of changes. In particular, there has been a shift away from a model of state control, to one of state oversight, in which the state designs a framework of rules and…

Applying grounded theory to 33 expert interviews about the underperformance of higher education in Peru, Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, and Mexico, this study indicated that the historical tradition of autonomy has fostered weak government control, revealing a host of issues common across these countries in their higher education system. This study…

In this article, we discuss how "managerialist" and "leaderist" discourses (O'Reilly and Reed "Public Administration" 88:960-978, 2010; "Organization Studies" 32:1079-1101, 2011) are drawn upon in the context of the deregulation of Swedish higher education. As of 2011, there has been new legislation that…

There are several common trends and challenges in the higher education (HE) system around the world, like expansion and diversification of HE, fiscal pressure and orientation to markets, demand for greater accountability and great quality and efficiency (e.g. The financing and management of higher education: a status report on worldwide reforms,…

Autonomisation, allowing public organisations greater freedom from central control, has been extensively debated in the public policy literature as a means of increasing their efficiency and effectiveness. The government of Vietnam has adopted autonomisation as a key policy in reforming public service delivery. This paper investigates the…

This paper directs attention to important changes in the role and funding of elite private universities in the USA. At the center of these changes is the private endowment--an institution that has for much of its history been a pivotal element of innovation and autonomy, but which is recently tilting towards the production and reproduction of…

State-university relations across Europe have undergone massive transformations, ranging from establishing new control institutions to reaffirming institutional autonomy. In this reform wave Denmark can in many ways be seen as an extreme case as the reforms affecting the Danish higher education system have gone further than in many of the…