Academic Entrepreneurialism vs. Changing Governance and Institutional Management Structures in European Universities (Chapter 5)

Abstract

In this chapter we will discuss a historically relatively new phenomenon in European higher education systems: academic entrepreneurialism – especially with regard to governance and management. Entrepreneurial universities seem to be increasingly important points of reference for international and European-level policy discussions about the future of higher education. Entrepreneurial institutions, functionally similar although variously termed, currently seem to be an almost natural reference points in both national discussions on reforming higher education systems, and especially a shift in its financing towards more financial self-reliance, as well as in EU-level discussions on how to secure the sustainable development of public universities in increasingly hostile financial environment and increasingly powerful intersectoral competition for public subsidies of higher education with other state-funded public services. An important point of reference of this chapter is the future role of universities from the perspective presented and promoted for more or less a decade (throughout the 2000s and beyond) by the European Commission, especially in the context of the transformation of university management and university governance. The second part of the chapter presents changes as suggested by the European Commission (in the framework of broad discussions on the Bologna Process and the Lisbon Strategy). Next we analyze academic entrepreneurialism, as emerging from recent European comparative (theoretical and empirical) studies in this area, especially a three-year international research project EUEREK (“European Universities for Entrepreneurship: Their Role in the Europe of Knowledge”). In the third part, academic entrepreneurialism is linked to risk management at European universities and legal and institutional conditions that favor its formation are studied. Increased risk is associated with an increase in uncertainty currently experienced by the vast majority of European education systems. In the fourth part, we study a clash of traditional academic values with managerial values in the functioning of academic institutions, and we address the issue of academic entrepreneurialism in the context of traditional academic collegiality, various ways of minimization of tensions in the management of educational institutions. And in its sixth part, we pass on to the discussion of complex relationships between academic entrepreneurialism and centralization and decentralization of the university power. In the seventh part, we discuss the location of academic entrepreneurialism in different parts of educational institutions. Conclusions come back to a wider vision of higher education as it appears in the documents of the European Commission and shows their convergences and divergences with academic entrepreneurialism as studied through empirical material throughout the chapter.