GLOSSARY

Academic autonomy refers to a university’s ability to decide on various academic issues, such as student admissions, academic content, quality assurance, the introduction of degree programmes and the language of instruction.

The ability to decide on overall student numbers and set admission criteria are fundamental aspects of institutional autonomy. While the number of study places has important implications for a university’s profile and finances, the capacity to select students contributes significantly to ensuring quality and matching student interest with the programmes offered.

The capacity to introduce academic programmes without outside interference and to select the language(s) of instruction enables a university to pursue its specific mission in a flexible way. A free choice of teaching language may also be important in the context of institutional internationalisation strategies.

Although quality assurance mechanisms are essential accountability tools, related processes can often be burdensome and bureaucratic. Universities should therefore be free to select the quality assurance regime and providers they consider as appropriate.

The ability to design the content of courses (except for the regulated professions) is a fundamental academic freedom.

Reference:
EUA, European Universities Association

Academic leadership is the key to determine the quality of university governance. Academic leadership influences, leads, and guides the multiple stakeholders to create a common academic vision through participation, interaction and coupling, and to motivate the members of the university to accomplish the common academic vision.

Reference:
University Governance and Academic Leadership in the EU and China
Chang Zhu and Merve Zayim-Kurtay, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium

The basic meaning of accountability can be outlined as an account-giving relation between individuals or organizations. In a public sector context, it plays a decisive role because it counterbalances the delegation of power among principal – agent relationships. This means that the more HEIs achieve autonomy from a central authority the more they need to be accountable. Also for private HEIs accountability has a fundamental role, because of the competition mechanisms both in the aspect of resources acquisition and in the aspect of students (customers) satisfaction.

The dimension measures the degree of effectiveness in data reporting. The degree of effectiveness is linked to the ability to make available in a clear and transparent way relevant data on different topics. For universities and their leaders, accountability represents the ethical and managerial obligation to report on their activities and results, explain their performance, and assume responsibility for unmet expectations. At the very minimum, all tertiary education institutions should be legally required to fulfill the following two basic dimensions of accountability: (i) integrity in the delivery of education services, and (ii) honesty in the use of financial resources. In addition, many stakeholders have a legitimate claim to expect a cost-effective use of available resources and the best possible quality and relevance of the programs and courses offered by these tertiary institutions.

Tertiary institutions maintain accountability specifically through their internal quality assurance mechanisms, regular reporting on academic results and relevance of programs, financial audits, and by putting in place appropriate instruments to prevent and punish corruption.

Reference:
Rabovsky, T. M. (2012). Accountability in higher education: Exploring impacts on state budgets and institutional spending patterns. Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, 22(4), 675-700.
Main reference to UniGov WP1 report

The system by which business corporations are directed and controlled. The corporate governance structure specifies the distribution of rights and responsibilities among different participants in the corporation, such as the board, managers, shareholders and other stakeholders, and spells out the rules and procedures for making decisions on corporate affairs. By doing this, it also provides the structure through which the company objectives are set, and the means of attaining those objectives and monitoring performance.

The system of rules, practices and processes by which a company is directed and controlled.

Reference:
OECD Principles of corporate governance (1999)

The responsibility of enterprises for their impacts on society. Respect for applicable legislation, and for collective agreements between social partners, is a prerequisite for meeting that responsibility. To fully meet their corporate social responsibility, enterprises should have in place a process to integrate social, environmental, ethical, human rights and consumer concerns into their business operations and core strategy in close collaboration with their stakeholders.

Reference:
European Commission (2011) A renewed EU strategy 2011-14 for Corporate Social Responsibility

Financial autonomy refers to a university’s ability to decide freely on its internal financial affairs. The ability to manage its funds independently enables an institution to set and realise its strategic aims. European universities receive an important proportion of their funds from the state. Whether this funding is provided as a line-item budget or a block grant, the extent to which it may be freely allocated to different budget lines and the length of the funding cycle are important aspects of financial autonomy.

The ability to keep a surplus and borrow money on the financial markets facilitate long-term financial planning and provide universities with the flexibility they need to fulfil their diverse missions in the most suitable way. Similarly, the capacity to own and sell university-occupied buildings enables them to determine institutional strategies and academic profiles. The ability to charge tuition fees opens up new private funding streams, which make up a significant percentage of university budgets in some higher education systems. In these cases, the freedom to charge and set the level of tuition fees is a crucial factor in deciding on institutional strategies.

Reference:
EUA, European Universities Association

It is the sum of the many ways that individuals and institutions, public and private, manage their common affairs. It is a continuing process through which conflicting or diverse interests may be accommodated and cooperative action taken. It includes formal institutions and regimes empowered to enforce compliance, as well as informal arrangements that people and institutions either have agreed to or perceive to be in their interest.

Reference:
The Commission on Global Governance, Our Global Neighbourhood, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995, p. 4.

Governance has been defined to refer to structures and processes that are designed to ensure accountability, transparency, responsiveness, rule of law, stability, equity and inclusiveness, empowerment, and broad-based participation. Governance also represents the norms, values and rules of the game through which public affairs are managed in a manner that is transparent, participatory, inclusive and responsive. Governance therefore can be subtle and may not be easily observable. In a broad sense, governance is about the culture and institutional environment in which citizens and stakeholders interact among themselves and participate in public affairs. It is more than the organs of the government.

International agencies such as UNDP, the World Bank, the OECD Development Assistance Committee (DAC) and others define governance as the exercise of authority or power in order to manage a country’s economic, political and administrative affairs. The 2009 Global Monitoring Report sees governance as ‘power relationships,’ ‘formal and informal processes of formulating policies and allocating resources,’ ‘processes of decision-making’ and ‘mechanisms for holding governments accountable.’

Often there is a tendency to equate governance with management, the latter primarily referring to the planning, implementation and monitoring functions in order to achieve pre-defined results. Governance systems set the parameters under which management and administrative systems will operate. Governance is about how power is distributed and shared, how policies are formulated, priorities set and stakeholders made accountable.

In the development literature, the term ‘good governance’ is frequently used. In particular, the donors promote the notion of ‘good governance’ as a necessary pre-condition for creating an enabling environment for poverty reduction and sustainable human development. Good governance has also been accepted as one of the targets of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The good governance agenda stems from the donor concern with the effectiveness of the development efforts. Good governance is expected to be participatory, transparent, accountable, effective and equitable and promotes rule of law.

Reference:
UNESCO, International Bureau of Education

HR autonomy refers to a university’s ability to decide freely on issues related to human resources management, including recruitments, salaries, dismissals and promotions. In order to compete in a global higher education environment, universities must be able to hire the most suitable and qualified academic and administrative staff without external prescriptions or interference. The ability to determine salary levels is of prime importance when attempting to attract an excellent international workforce. The civil servant status held by university employees still prevents institutions in a number of European countries from setting salaries. The capacity to promote and dismiss personnel freely enhances an institution’s flexibility, providing it with a competitive advantage with regard to staffing matters. The possibility to promote staff on the basis of merit remains restricted in a number of European higher education systems. Compliance with applicable labour laws and regulations is of course not regarded as a restriction on institutional autonomy.

Reference:
EUA, European Universities Association

Is the initiative by university manages/administrators to properly and effectively attend to the concerns, queries, proposals, grievances and feedbacks of students, academic and non-academic staff. Management encompasses processes, structures and arrangements that are designed to mobilize and transform the available physical, human and financial resources to achieve concrete outcomes. Management refers to individuals or groups of people who are given the authority to achieve the desired results.

Run the organization in line with the broad goals and direction set by the governing body. Implement the decisions within the context of the mission and strategic vision. Make operational decisions and policies, keep the governance bodies informed and educated. Be responsive to requests for additional information.

Reference:
UNESCO, International Bureau of Education

A mission statement, or simply a mission, is a public declaration that educational organizations use to describe their founding purpose and major organizational commitments—i.e., what they do and why they do it. A mission statement may describe day-to-day operational objectives, instructional values, or public commitments to students and community.

Reference:
The Glossary of Education Reform

The legal framework refers to the system of rules and regulation related to higher education.

It is based on the idea that many different actors may be involved in the public process and the network’s role and multilevel governance emerge in the debate. The network governance model builds on some criticisms of NPM. The main features concern the
development of higher education networks between higher education institutions and between higher education institutions and other social actors, where self-steering and self-organisation are implemented in these relationships. Models of complex multilevel governance are encouraged, including different levels of government (regional, local and supranational) but also a range of non-governmental stakeholders such as firms and civil society increase collaboration with HEIs; HEI governance systems are requested to become more pluralist, participative and less directive; there is a shift in the notions of accountability, referring mainly to the idea of giving account to other stakeholders through face-to-face dialogue. The state has a role of general interest supervisor and, in terms of senior management style, there is an emphasis on softer leadership skills, visioning and networking-based approaches.

Reference:
The Steering of Higher Education Systems: A Public Management Perspective, Ferlie Ewan, September 2008

Operational planning is planning that takes place at the department level of an organization. In institutions where planning is not integrated, operational planning usually means the divisions and departments develop their own visions and, with them, their own list of critical resource needs. What this means at budget time is that each functional area has its own requests for institutional resources and these are not necessarily linked to the budget requests from any other functional area.

Reference:
A Practical Guide to Strategic Planning in Higher Education, by Karen E. Hinton, Society for College and University Planning (2021), www.scup.org

Organisational autonomy refers to a university’s ability to decide freely on its internal organisation, such as the executive leadership, decision-making bodies, legal entities and internal academic structures. The ability to independently select, appoint and dismiss the executive head and to decide on the length of his/her term of office is by no means guaranteed in all European higher education systems. Legal guidelines and restrictions still apply in many countries.
University governing bodies, which usually consist of a board or council, a senate or both, decide on long-term strategic issues, like statutes and the budget, and academic matters, such as curricula and staff promotions. If external, non-university members are included in governing bodies and hence involved in such fundamental institutional decisions, it is important that universities have their say in their appointment.

The capacity to create profit and not-for-profit legal entities and to decide on internal academic structures is directly linked to an institution’s ability to determine and pursue its academic and strategic direction. The ability to set up distinct legal entities may also open up important new funding streams.

Reference:
EUA, European Universities Association

Organizational performance is a fundamental construct in strategic management. Recently, researchers proposed a framework for organizational performance that includes three dimensions: accounting returns, growth, and stock market performance.

Reference:
EUA, European Universities Association

Stakeholders actively participate, through meetings or representations on councils, in the decision-making processes of the HEI.

Reference:
MacDonald, A., Clarke, A. and Huang, L. (2019), “Multi-stakeholder partnerships for sustainability: designing decision-making processes for partnership capacity”, Journal of Business Ethics, Vol. 160 No. 2, pp. 409-426

Public governance refers to the formal and informal arrangements that determine how public decisions are made and how public actions are carried out, from the perspective of maintaining a country’s constitutional values when facing changing problems and environments. The principal elements of good governance refer to accountability, transparency, efficiency, effectiveness, responsiveness and rule of law. There are clear links between good public governance, investment and development. The greatest current challenge is to adapt public governance to social change in the global economy. Thus, the evolving role of the State needs a flexible approach in the design and implementation of public governance.

Reference:
OECD (2011) POLICY FRAMEWORK FOR INVESTMENT USER’S TOOLKIT Chapter 10. Public Governance

Internal stakeholder
Person employed by or enrolled at a higher education institution.

External stakeholder
Persons who have a vested interest in the function, practices and outcomes of higher education institutions (may include members of central, regional or local government, employers in the labour market or other representatives from industry, members of labour unions, national student associations, representatives of civic society, graduates, parents of students, etc.).

Reference:
Higher Education Governance in Europe Policies, structures, funding and academic staff. Eurydice, 2008

It is a governance model where governance arrangements are made by the relationships between state and academic oligarchy. The role of steering strategies is divided between the government and the academic oligarchy; the State coordinates all or most aspects of HEIs, such as admission requirements, curricula, exams, nomination of academic staff. The academic oligarchy manages internal organisations mainly for teaching and research. Management and administrative human resources have a very limited role.

Reference:
Van Vught, F. A., & Westerheijden, D. F. (1993). Quality management and quality assurance in European higher education: Methods and mechanisms. (Studies; Vol. 1). Commission of the European Community.

It is a governance model where governance arrangements are made by the relationships between internal management and academic oligarchy. The role of steering is divided between the management and the academic oligarchy while the state has a limited role, a supervising role, without defining regulations in detail.

Reference:
Van Vught, F. A., & Westerheijden, D. F. (1993). Quality management and quality assurance in European higher education: Methods and mechanisms. (Studies; Vol. 1). Commission of the European Community.

Strategic planning usually refers to the process which results in the development of a strategic plan. This plan identifies the future direction of an institution and maps the way the direction will be reached.
Strategic planning is this, but it is also much more. If an effective strategic planning process is in place in an institution, the following should be evidenced:

• A clearly defined and articulated institutional direction.
• Institutional ability to choose priorities based on self-evaluation and understanding.
• Knowledge and ownership of the institutional direction by all major institutional constituencies.
• Institutional openness to growth, change.
• Institutional ability to respond thoughtfully, but quickly, to new challenges.
• Unified plans and actions, with clear lines of accountability.
• Strong financial and resourcing plans to back identified strategic directions.
• Institutional leader’s constant focus on the plan with all constituent groups.
• An efficient but effective assessment and reporting strategy.

Reference:
Strategic Planning in Higher Education, Andrea Luxton
Andrews University, 2005

This refers to that which is beyond institutional infrastructure governance.

Reference:
Bouckaert, Pollitt, Public Management Reform: A Comparative Analysis
December 2000, Long Range Planning 33(6)

This refers to system design at the macro level, which includes major checks and balances, key allocation mechanisms of resources, core decision making, and distribution of power in society. It also implies a Whole of Government approach.

Reference:
Bouckaert, Pollitt, Public Management Reform: A Comparative Analysis
December 2000, Long Range Planning 33(6)

It refers to an additional function of the universities in the context of knowledge society. The university is not only responsible for qualifying the human capital (Education – the first mission) and for producing new knowledge (Research – the second mission). Universities must engage with societal needs and market demands by linking the university’s activity with its own socio-economic context. Today universities develop their strategies around these three missions and play a much more visible and stronger role in the design of modern knowledge societies by providing socially, culturally and economically usable knowledge.

Reference:
Pinto, Cruz, De Almeida (2016), Academic Entrepreneurship and Knowledge Transfer Networks: Translation Process and Boundary Organizations

University governance is defined as the constitutional forms. and processes through which universities govern their affairs. Governance and the process of governing the university. interact with the internal and external stakeholders striving for.

University governance is one of the key elements that can lead to improving outcomes. Altbach and Salmi (2011) report that the important characteristics of successful world class universities are: leadership, government policy, funding, the ability to continually focus on a clear set of goals and institutional policies, development of a strong academic culture, and quality of the academic staff. University governance is an important driver of change: how institutions are managed is one of the most decisive factors in achieving their goals. There are many governance models that vary according to the national context, the type of institution, the historical legacy, and other cultural, political, and, sometimes, economic factors. It is clear that there is no single model or “one size fits all” approach to university governance. It is also clear that choosing a governance model for adoption by a given institution must be a well thought out decision. As Trakman (2008) suggests, “Good governance is much about timing and judgment: it requires boards of governors to recognize when a governance model is not working, why, and how to repair it.”

Reference:
Universities Through the Looking Glass : Benchmarking University Governance to Enable Higher Education Modernization in MENA

Faced with the complexity of current and future global challenges, higher education institutions have the social responsibility to advance our understanding of multifaceted issues, which involve social, economic, scientific and cultural dimensions, and our ability to respond to them. It should lead society in generating global knowledge to address global challenges, food security, climate change, water management, intercultural dialogue, renewable energy and public health. Higher education institutions, through their core functions (research, teaching and service to the community) carried out in the context of institutional autonomy and academic freedom, should increase their interdisciplinary focus and promote critical thinking and active citizenship. This would contribute to sustainable development, peace, wellbeing and the realization of human rights, including gender equity.
Social responsibility is best understood as the idea that organizations, institutions, and individuals have an obligation to act for the benefit of society as a whole, drawing on principles around ethics and social welfare. Social responsibility plays a critical role in the HE sector, cementing the sector’s place within society as a catalyst for innovation, progress, and social and economic development.

Reference:
UNESCO (2009) World Conference on Higher Education: The New Dynamics of Higher Education and Research for Societal Change and Development

QS Star (2019) The rise of social responsibility in Higher Education

The university strategy is the core document setting the university’s objectives for the future. It is the plan to achieve long-term and short-term goals. It reflects the vision of the institution and sets the priorities and main area of intervention for a set period of time.

A vision statement, or simply a vision, is a public declaration that educational organizations use to describe their high-level goals for the future—what they hope to achieve if they successfully fulfil their organizational purpose or mission. A vision statement may describe core organizational values, long-term objectives, or what the organization hopes students will learn or be capable of doing after graduating.

Reference:
The Glossary of Education Reform