Workshop - Meta-governance in European higher education and research
There is a general consensus that higher education and research in Europe is currently undergoing a period of intense governance pressures. There has been a shift towards the ‘governance of governance’ in higher education and research, an extension beyond traditional policy instruments to include new institutional forms which work by setting the ground rules and exerting ordering effects on the sector. This workshop seeks to explore the problematique of meta-governance and its impact on research and higher education.
Higher education and research in Europe are currently undergoing a period of intense governance pressures. National schemes for evaluation of higher education and research are in many cases amplified by European level regimes of governance such as Bologna. Although strictly speaking focused on outcomes, evaluation practices do have impacts on the way scientific work is conceptualized and operationalized. Likewise, the conceptions of learning and skills that drive reward schemes for teaching are influenced by the criteria used to evaluate higher education.
There is also a growing tendency to translate practices and criteria used by scientists to promote epistemic goals (e.g. knowledge creation) into evaluation criteria and vice versa. One concrete example is the transformation of internationalism from an epistemic value into a goal in itself for research management, career development and quality in higher education. Another is the recasting of excellence from a post hoc evaluation criterion based on tacit and local epistemic standards in science to a set of ex ante and more generalized indicators which can be ‘indiscriminately’ applied to all fields.
Reasoning from an understanding of governance as the steering or control of an activity in order to meet specified objectives, we can posit that higher education and research are subject to at least two forms of governance. One is the practices and standards applied by practitioners (researchers and teachers) to achieve goals such as valid knowledge and learning (epistemic governance). The other is the practices employed by policymakers and regulators to ensure that research and education meet the needs of society (societal governance). These forms of governance coexist but the nature of this coexistence and its effects remain unclear. Key actors in the governance processes have different needs, interests and preferred outcomes. Scientists and policymakers may share a commitment to the view that science needs to serve society and yet differ in terms of the interests and outcomes they define as necessary for realizing this shared commitment.
The policy community’s recognition of this problematique has led to a shift towards the ‘governance of governance’ in higher education and research. By this we mean the extension of societal governance beyond traditional policy instruments to include new institutional forms which set the ground rules and exert ordering effects on the sector. For example, universities themselves decide if to respond to rankings but to the extent that they do, the effect may be increased resources. This workshop seeks to explore the problematique of meta-governance and its impact on the actuality of research and higher education and discuss the following issues
How do governance practices affect extant power structures in academia?
Are criteria such as internationalization promoting standardisation in science and science policy?
How is mobility distributed across scientific contexts (national and disciplinary), are there winners and losers?
How are imperatives such as Bologna, European Research Area motivated and leveraged and what impacts do they have in national context?
