Table of Contents

INTERNATIONAL HIGHER EDUCATION

Europe: Governance, Expectations, and Reform

Peter Maassen
Peter Maassen is professor of higher education at the University of Oslo; senior researcher at NIFU STEP (the Research Institute for Studies in Innovation, Research, and Education), Oslo, Norway; and director of Hedda (www.uio.no/hedda), a consortium of European centers for higher education research. E-mail: peter.maassen@ped.uio.no.

European higher education, especially the traditional research university, is currently in a state of institutional flux. In Europe, higher education institutions have historically played an important role in nation building—supplying states with educated manpower, building national consciousness and identity, integrating national elites, and providing a national research capacity for economic and social development. Consequently, higher education institutions have long been regarded as national institutions, with the national authorities responsible for regulations and funding. The Treaty of Maastricht (1992), which forms the legal basis for the European Union (EU), also viewed higher education as national entities, implying that the European Commission could not undertake any initiative itself for harmonizing higher education.

Growing Involvement of the EU
Recently, however, the need for a joint European policy perspective on higher education has become more widely accepted. The European commission, in particular, has claimed that a dynamic knowledge-based economy requires modernization of European universities and colleges. The president of the commission (Jos? Manuel Barroso) and the commissioners responsible for higher education and for research state that higher education has never featured so high on the commission's agenda, that the political interest in higher education is growing, and that reforms are urgently needed.

In line with this, the commission has produced a stream of documents promoting radical reforms. A "Charter for Researchers" specifying roles and responsibilities has been developed; the European Research Council is presented as an important institutional innovation and an autonomous entity under scientific leadership. The European Institute of Technology is promoted as Europe's "knowledge flagship," bringing together research, education, and innovation. Its governing board is to consist of academics and businesspeople seen as able to select the best areas for long-term investment in research within a 10-to-15-year period.

A New University Model?
This EU focus on higher education is accompanied by an intense mistrust of university traditions, as can be illustrated by the following quote from Commissioner Ján Figel: "We need a new model . . . [to] demonstrate to countries where university models still hark back to the days of Humboldt that today there are additional ways of doing things."

The "new model" proposed by the commission emphasizes leadership, management, and entrepreneurship more than individuals' academic freedom, internal democracy, and the organizing role of academic disciplines. Higher education institutions should gain greater autonomy but must also produce more accountability. This transition requires new internal governance structures involving strategic priorities and professional management. Universities and colleges must overcome their fragmentation into faculties, departments, laboratories, research centers, and administrative units and instead target their efforts collectively on institutional priorities for research, teaching, and innovation. This mission should include multilateral consortia, joint-degree arrangements, networks, and collaborations. The commission also supports a further separation of teaching from research and more differentiation and stratification among higher education institutions yet with fewer differences between countries and more within each country.

International competitiveness and higher education's contribution to society's economic and social progress are seen to be held back by the role historically played by governments. In the new model the state should serve less predominantly as funder, receiver of graduates, and user of knowledge. There should be governance by standardization, dialogue, benchmarking, and exchange of "good practice." Higher education's mission for society requires an external system of quality assurance and accreditation and a move from state control to being accountable to society and customers. External controls are called for—through increased competition, externally defined standards and goals, demands for results that can be documented in numbers, and external monitoring units.

Reforms are driven both by the fear of falling behind and by promises of new resources. With a funding deficit, investments in European universities need to be increased and diversified. Compared to the United States, on average a ¢æ10,000 gap in resources per student exists, according to the European Commission. The commission stated that higher education as the "knowledge industry," like other industries, urgently needs reform and that the goals and remedies are basically the same as for other sectors. As was argued last year by European Commission President Barroso, "Europe's economic future depends on having the most highly educated and trained people, with the full range of skills and the adaptability required in a ¡®knowledge economy'. That is why we must boost investment in higher education significantly. The commission is suggesting a target [investment for higher education] of 2 percent of gross domestic product by 2010."

[Online] Available: http://www.bc.edu/bc_org/avp/soe/cihe/newsletter/Number49/p13_Maassen.htm