Abstract

This project aims to analyze the supranational trends that are influencing HE autonomy in Europe and how they are being translated at national and institutional level, focusing on how the political grammar they convey has repercussions on the articulation of education, research and innovation in HEIs and their missions(1). In recent decades, under the influence of neoliberal policies, HEIs have faced challenges that question their culture, missions and traditional purposes: the training of citizens, the preservation and creation of knowledge, its free access by the community(2), and their autonomy. Research has shown that pedagogical autonomy is coming under pressure from the use of learning outcomes, designed to ensure the conformity of educational results with the demands of the labor market, while research autonomy(3) is being conditioned by the need to ensure 'relevance' and useful knowledge (5).

In Europe, the pressure on HEIs to provide the labor market with graduates with the skills required for the needs of the economy, to promote the economic relevance of R&D and the deployment of innovations in the market(2) has influenced the mandate for HE. As this mandate promotes a closer articulation between education, research and innovation(4,6,7), the project will focus on pedagogical and research autonomy, as these have an impact on the orientations that the governance and management of HEIs have been developing under the influence of market logics and business models(8). The research on pedagogical autonomy will focus on the creation and design of programs, the role that external stakeholders have in these processes and their alignment with national and institutional strategies. In order to analyze research autonomy, the project will focus on the strategies formally assumed by HEIs and the visions that RTs have about the selection of themes, goals and objectives of the projects they handle.

The project takes a multi-level approach: European, national and institutional. It considers the influence of supranational actors (EU) and assumes the role that states play in mediating the challenges arising from SE ecosystems(1). It is relevant to compare contexts where the state plays a stronger regulatory role (France and Finland)(9,10), with those where the national dimension is prominent and supranational policies tend to be resisted (Poland), those where market-oriented policies are more influential (the Netherlands)(11), and those where mixed characteristics of state regulation and institutional autonomy prevail (Portugal)(12). The comparison between the systems and HEIs in these countries aims to identify the configurations they are taking on by analyzing governance, institutional management and the role of professionals in making their pedagogical and research autonomy a reality. The project aims to map the trends that have transformed European HE in recent decades and the autonomy of HEIs.

The research questions are: how do supranational trends influence the autonomy of SE in Europe?How are supranational trends being translated at national and institutional levels? Do national policies reflect stronger state coordination of market regulation?How are HEIs articulating education, research and innovation in fulfilling their missions?How do these trends impact on programs and the autonomy of academics to select topics and design research projects?

CoPIn

GAPE – Educational Policies Analysis Group

Funding

FCT - Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia

Keywords

Education
Higher education institutions
Research
Higher education policies and autonomy

Responsible Investigator

Amélia Veiga

Partners

Centro de Investigação em Políticas do Ensino Superior (Instituição proponente
Faculdade de Psicologia e de Ciências da Educação da Universidade do Porto
Institut de Recherce en Gestion - Université Paris-Est
Tampereen yliopisto
Universiteit Leiden
Uniwersytet Mikolaja Kopernika