• Introduction
• Romania by Mihut
• Romania by Calugareanu
• Austria by Nestorowicz
• Serbia by Holubek and Milutinović
• A comparative case of Slovenia, Romania, Serbia and Macedonia in the context of EU membership status
• Vietnam by Nguyen
• China by Zheng
• New Zealand by Traveller
• Ethiopia by Woldegiyorgis

Austria

Natalia Nestorowicz

 

Abstract

This paper examines the governance structure of the higher education system in Austria by using the “governance equalizer”, an analytical tool for the comparison of different higher education governance systems, developed by Boer, Enders and Schimank in 2007. The paper is structured in two main parts. The first, more theoretically oriented part refers to the definition of the concept of governance in the context of Higher Education. Furthermore, the different dimensions of governance of universities will be identified which form the basis of the governance equalizer. The second part has a more practical approach by applying the governance equalizer to the specific case of the Austrian higher education system. Thus, the governance structure of the Austrian higher education system will be analysed over time in order to illustrate the development of the governance dimensions in the governance equalizer.

Keywords: governance in higher education, higher education system in Austria

 

The concept of “governance” in Higher Education

The notion of governance refers to “the formal and informal exercise of authority under laws, policies and rules that articulate the rights and responsibilities of various actors, including the rules by which they interact so as to help achieve the institution’s academic objectives” (Hirsch & Weber, 2001, as cited in Fried, 2006, p. 85). In other words, the fundamental questions that are asked in the governance discussion are: who exercises formal and informal authority, what are the sources of legitimacy for executive decision making by different stakeholders, how is money allocated to institutions and how are they accountable and to whom? (Fried, 2006, p. 84).

The concept of governance focuses on a decentralisation of power where various stakeholders can influence decisions. This idea is closely linked to the neo-liberal restructuring of all possible areas of the public sphere, ranging from economy and politics to civil society. The distribution of decision-making power is also gradually adopted in the public sector. Critics of this development fear that the neo-liberal form of governance increasingly undermines the classical welfare state and imposes its entrepreneurial spirit on public institutions as well. Furthermore, the decentralised governance confronts the public sector with challenges unknown in this field such as transparency and accountability towards shareholders and society (Fried, 2006, p. 84).

This paradigm-shift in governance has also found its way into universities. Ulrike Felt (2003), an Austrian scholar, describes this change in the following way: “the contract negotiated between universities and society, under particular conditions in the 1970s and based on a certain set of values, is now being renegotiated in the context of wider societal changes” (p. 14). The urge for a re-negotiation of governance structures is due to a combination of numerous factors. The most prominent among them are certainly increasing student numbers in the face of decreasing public expenditure for Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) as well as growing national and international competitiveness between universities (Fried, 2006, p. 84). These developments within the higher education sector can be seen throughout Europe and beyond. Different countries tackle theses challenges in different ways depending on their specific historical, political and cultural background. But they all have something in common, which can be described as a “crisis of legitimacy and capacity” (ibid., 2006, p. 84) that is questioning the traditional way of academic self-governance.

 

New Public Management in Higher Education

Many countries pursue as a way out of the crisis a certain approach, namely that of New Public Management (NPM). Instead of the traditional mode of academic self-government the new approach refers to the managerial self-governance of public bodies. In the context of Higher Education, NPM is characterized by specific features: public institutions gain greater autonomy to run their own “business”, public funds are allocated in “lump sum”-form and funding from third parties (students, business) is explicitly encouraged. In exchange for the greater financial and managerial autonomy, universities are accountable to the government by the means of performance indicators and quality assessments that in return affect the amount of funding (OECD, 2003, p. 60). The underlying intention of NPM is the promotion of greater efficiency and responsiveness of HEIs. In neo-liberalistic speech the NPM formula is often broken down to “Less state” and “more market” (De Boer, Enders, & Schimank, 2007, p. 2). Unsurprisingly, the NPM approach doesn’t enjoy great popularity in the academic “ivory tower”, because academia, sui generis, faces any kind of “management”-led approach with great scepticism (OECD, 2003, p. 62). Thus, the emergence of NPM approaches in the context of Higher Education (HE) triggered lively discussions and many academic articles analyse the shift in academic governance from academic-self steering towards managerial self-governance (Fried, 2006).

 

Dimensions of governance

As the discussion on higher education governance is both complex and somewhat fuzzy some scholars (Schimank, Kehm, & Enders, 1999) identified five principal mechanisms of co-ordination for the steering of universities (Fried, 2006). The five dimensions of governance consist of:

 

• State regulation refers to the authority of the state that sets the rules under which universities are allowed to operate. This dimension characterizes typically the traditional notion of top-down approach of governing public institutions through binding regulations and orders that define the institutional room to manoeuvre.
• Stakeholder guidance involves besides the government also other actors such as representatives of industry as members of university boards in the decision making process to which the government has assigned certain duties. The power of external stakeholders lies in directing universities through goal setting and advice.
• Academic self-governance emphasises the role of professorial communities within the university system that steer, co-ordinate and control the agendas of universities. Their modus operandi is either through collegial decision making in committees or through peer reviews.
• Managerial self-governance relates to the hierarchical power of university leadership (rector, dean) in terms of goal setting and decision making processes. Their authority is held accountable by intra-institutional checks and balances.
• Competition concerns the logic of the market that defines the university’s activities. Scarce resources in terms of money, staff and prestige are increasingly allocated through competitive mechanisms. However, competition does not take place on “real” markets“ but rather on “quasi” markets. Instead of the customers, the academic peers define and evaluate the performance of HEIs.

(De Boer et al., 2007; Fried, 2006)

These different governance dimensions are used as analytical categories to describe the characteristics of higher education systems. However, the characteristics that define the mechanisms of decision-making processes in universities are not detached from its context but always reflect specific local, historical and socio-economic conditions. Thus, a single European or global model of higher education governance does not exist but rather a broad variety of governance regimes (Fried, 2006, p. 80).

 

Governance Equalizer

As illustrated above, governance consists of a complex web of stakeholders, interests, laws, policies and rules that span over HEIs. The different dimensions of governance can serve as a helpful tool to cut through the web in order to identify different trends and developments of governance patters. Hence, different national patterns can be compared to each other. Such a “heuristic tool for the international comparison of highly ambiguous concepts” (Fried 2006, p. 86) based on the five governance dimensions was developed by Boer, Enders and Schimank (2007). Using the analogy of an equalizer that adjusts the balance between frequencies within an audio signal they called their instrument “governance equalizer”. The different frequencies are represented by the five governance dimensions, which can be scaled up and down according to the intensity of occurrence. The equalizer implies that the specific configuration of dimensions depicts the governance regimes. Furthermore, the model is based on the assumption that governance regimes are always mixtures of all five principal mechanisms (De Boer et al., 2007, p. 4). In this way a multi-dimensional image of the governance structure can be produced. To illustrate the governance equalizer, the following graph shows the “ideal types” of two governance modes, which could not be more different from each other: the “traditional” type on the one hand and the “entrepreneurial” (also NPM) type on the other hand.

 

Figure 1. Governance Equalizer of a traditional vs. entrepreneurial university. Fried (2006), “Higher education governance in Europe: autonomy, ownership and accountability – A review of the literature” based on de Boer et al., (2005).

Legend:  SR= State regulation, ASR= Academic self-governance, SG=Stakeholder guidance, MSR= Managerial self-governance, C= Competition

The traditional mode is characterized through a rather high level of state regulation and academic self-governance, whereas the dimensions stakeholder guidance, managerial self-governance and competition are kept on a lower level. The “entrepreneurial university”- type, which is in alignment with the NPM approach, shows a mirror-inverted picture, where the five dimensions are exactly on the opposite end of the regulator. State regulation and academic self-governance are marginal. At the same time, stakeholder guidance, managerial self-guidance and competition score high (De Boer et al., 2007, p. 4).

Now, that we have a theoretical understanding of the concept of governance, its underlying dimensions and the way the governance equalizer functions, we can move to the next step – applying the tool practically on the example of the Austrian higher education system.

 

Higher education governance in Austria

The transformation of Austrian higher education, which was heralded by the 2002 University Act seems like taken from a textbook of the NPM persuasion ... The new government took pride to stress whenever possible that it is (or strives to be) a ‘model disciple’ (Musterschüler) within Europe. (Fried, 2006, p. 101)

The Austrian higher education governance is often referred to as a “model disciple” (ibid., p. 101) in adopting the NPM approach to its strategic steering of universities. Also de Boer, Enders and Schimank analysed in their oft-cited article on the “governance equalizer”, besides the governance of university systems in England, the Netherlands and Germany, also the Austrian one. Schimank, one of the authors, was even substantially involved in the radical redesign of the Austrian Higher education system when he presented an expertise for the draft of the revolutionary University Act (UG 2002) in 2000 (Zechlin, 2010, p. 116).

In the following part, I will examine the governance structure of the Austrian Higher Education system over time by using the five governance dimensions. As we have already learned above, every governance systems refers to a specific context, thus, it seems even more urgent to start telling the story from scratch – which is the “Humboldtian tradition” on which the higher education system in the German-speaking countries is built on. Building up on this, I continue with the analysis of the crucial time periods for the Austrian Higher Education. The first period spans from the 1970ies to the 1990s, followed by the period between 1990 and 2000. The third timeframe starts in 2002, with the introduction of a new University Act (UG2002), which ushered the governance of the Austrian higher education system in a new era. Finally, the last part will point out the challenges that Austrian universities still have to tackle in future. To sum up, the findings of the analysis, the development of the Austrian higher education system will be illustrated in the governance equalizer.

But before we start with the analysis of the higher education governance in Austria, I will outline some fast facts about the Austrian Higher Education Landscape in order to map the field in terms of its size and shape.

 

Overview of the Austrian Higher Education System

Definition of Higher Education

The term Higher Education refers to Universities and other tertiary, also called post-secondary institutions, that award degrees and advanced research qualifications. In Austria recognized Higher Education Institutions have to fulfil the following criteria:

• Offering study programs with a minimum of 180 ECTS credit points
• Requiring admission criteria in form of the general university entrance qualification (Matura) or proof of artistic aptitude for art studies
•  Being recognized by the statutory provisions of the state.

(Kasprovsky & Wadsack, 2004, p. 14)

 

Higher Education landscape in Austria

The Austrian Higher Education landscape consists of several types of institutions, which all have their particular missions. The largest higher education sector comprises 22 Public Universities with about 290.000 students, which is 80% of all persons studying in Austria. The 21 Universities of Applied Sciences (Fachhochschulen) form the second largest Higher Education sector with only 10% of all Austrian students (around 40.000 students) (Statistik Austria, 2013). These Higher Education Institutions were introduced in 1994 as a practice-oriented alternative to the classical “Humboldtian” university. In contrast to the classical university, which is characterized by the unity of teaching and research, universities of applied sciences have a vocational mission and should therefore provide students especially with professional skills. In addition, there are 17 University Colleges of Teacher Education (Pädagogische Hochschulen, introduced in 2007) with approximately 25.000 students and 13 Private Universities (introduced in 2000) with almost 7.000 students. These numbers sump up to a total of about 360,000 students that were registered in the Austrian Higher education sector in 2011/2012 (Eurypedia, 2013; Statistik Austria 2013). The highest state organ responsible for the Universities (including universities of applied sciences and private universities) is the Federal Ministry of Science and Research (BMWF). The Government is also the main funding body of the higher education sector with a share of 88%, however, the private share in university funding has increased considerably in recent years, from 4% in 2000 to 12% in 2009 (Eurypedia, 2013). Public expenditure on higher education amounted to EUR 3608.7 millions in 2011, which constitutes 1.4% of GDP and is approximately equivalent to the EU21 average (Statistik Austria, 2013).

 

Higher Education governance in Austria over time

The governance modes of the Austrian higher education system have changed several times over the last five decades. The traditional governance regime of the Austrian universities is characterized by the dominance of a combination of two governance mechanisms: state and academic self-governance. This governance system was seen as a compromise between the two power poles that had its roots in the Humboldtian legacy of the 19th century (Schimank, 2002, p. 24). Basically, universities were steered according to this model for another 150 years, until the late 20th century. After decades of standstill, there were two major waves of reforms, the first one in the 1970s and the second in the 1990s/2000 that have stirred the Austrian system fundamentally. The former refers to the democratization reforms, the latter to the development towards managerial self-steering of universities (Pechar, 2005).

 

 Figure 2. Governance reforms in Austria over time. Source: own diagram.

 

The Humboldtian tradition of university governance

The Humboldtian model, based on the unity of research and teaching, the autonomy of the University as well as the education of a humanistic personality shaped Austrian universities for about 150 years. In terms of the governance regime, this means a dualistic distribution of power between state and academic authority. University professors were powerful in all matters regarding teaching and research. Chair holders were heads of academic units, who had a high degree of authority in their field. The traditional chair system (Ordinarien-universität) had the consequence that junior faculty members were heavily dependent on the chair holders, which means subsequently that self-governance was basically executed only by full professors. All non-academic and organizational aspects of university life on the other hand were regulated by the state. Universities were state agencies and its employees (academic and non-academic) were civil servants with lifelong tenure to secure their academic freedom (Pechar, 2005, p. 3). The Minister also appointed the rector that was regarded as “primus inter pares” to represent the university (ibid., p. 4). Due to the strong dominance of these two governance dimensions, the other three ones (external guidance, managerial self-guidance and competition) were poorly developed (Schimank, 2002, p. 25).

1970 - 1992

With the development of mass university since the 1960s, the weaknesses of the dualistic governance system have become obvious. During the 1970s the annual increase in enrolments was up to 10%. As a result of the growing demand for teaching also junior staff had to assume teaching duties. In exchange for its new responsibilities junior faculty members claimed representation in collegial bodies (Pechar, 2005). Their demands were realized with the new University Organization Act that came into force in 1975. The traditional oligarchic “Ordinarienuniversität” was transformed in a “group university” (ibid.). This new type of governance refers to the inclusion of all types of university staff (university teachers, students and the administrative staff) in the decision making process. Another novel feature was the re-organization of university departments. The UOG 1975 was the first step towards a modernization of the traditional governance model (ibid.).

During the upcoming years, university slowly accepted the new mode of decision-making. At the same time the government became more interested in higher education policy due to the growing student numbers and the emphasis on the qualification of the workforce.

However, public funding of universities could not keep pace with the increasing students numbers. This was the start of the erosion of the mutual trust between academics and government (ibid.).

1990 - 2000

Beginning of the 1990s a more intensive discussion about higher education reforms began – also against the background of the international debates on new public management in higher education (Schimank, 2002). In October 1991, the ministry presented a paper for a new organisational act that intended to introduce a more managerial approach in the governance mode of universities. The proposal envisaged amongst other changes a lump sum budget that would allow the university to spend the money according to their own priorities and an external board with advisory competences. Furthermore, the new law would grant full legal capacity to universities and allow them to employ staff under private law. Thus, there should be two types of employment contracts: traditional contracts with a civil servants status for the old staff and private contracts for the new ones (Pechar, 2005). Of course, this paper garnered harsh criticism on the part of academics and the ministry felt impelled to assign a working group that should revise the legislative proposal. However, the proposal continued to be rejected by the university and other interests groups, arguing that even the revised version had a too strong emphasize on a managerial approach of governance. Eventually the new University Act (UOG 93) was passed in 1993, but almost all intended changes were softened, if not neutralised (ibid.).

In 1998, only five years after the implementation of the new university law, there was again an attempt to reform the higher education system. Only that this time the initiative came mainly from the rectors who complained that the UOG 93 didn’t put the “full legal capacity” of universities through. The government took up this initiative and developed a first draft for a new reform strategy.  The draft included the implementation of lump sum budgets, performance contracts, establishment of university boards and a strengthening of the rector’s position. Unsurprisingly, the draft was again criticised by academia (ibid.). But this time everything turned out differently.

2001 - 2013

In Austria changes were relatively marginal up to the turn of the century, when all of a sudden Austrian universities were shaken up by massive policy changes. (De Boer et al., 2007, p. 5)

In 2000, there was a change of government that switched from a coalition between social democrats and conservatives to a coalition between conservatives and the right wing “Freedom Party” (FPÖ). The new government in power aimed for a reform of the whole public sector by privatising state-owned enterprises and was generally a supporter of the “New Economy”-ideology (Fried, 2006, p. 100). It was eager “to advance Austria to the top of governance reforms in higher education in Europe” (Fried, 2006, p. 101). Already in 2002, the new centre-right government passed the revolutionary University Act (UG 2002) that introduced radical changes and transformed Universities from federal institutions into independent public-law entities with organizational autonomy. This Act marked a new era in the development of the governance of universities in Austria (Kasprovsky & Wadsack, 2004, p. 12). Under the UG 2002 universities have adopted full legal capacity and became independent entities. In practice this means that universities have been given autonomy in terms of all organizational matters such as distribution of budget (global budget), staffing, curricula, etc.

Translated to the governance equalizer, state regulation is lower. However, the government retains an important influence on universities as their autonomy is in account of a new control system. The newly introduced control instruments comprise global budget and performance agreements. Every three years the Ministry concludes performance agreements with each university. 80% of the total budget is distributed on the basis of negotiations between Ministry and university. The remaining 20% are linked to performance indicators such as number of graduates or research productivity. Paradoxically, these control instruments were brought to the University under the guise of autonomy. The universities “full legal capacity” implies two other important consequences. On the one hand the law created a legal basis for an “entrepreneurial university” (Clark, 1998). Universities are encouraged to develop their own funding resources through third party funding. On the other hand all newly appointed academic staff after the UG 2002 is employed under private contracts (Kasprovsky & Wadsack, 2004, p. 13). Another consequence of the increasing managerial self-competence of universities due their new legal status is the gain in importance of the university leadership. The rectorate consist of a rector that is supported by four vice-rectors. They not only have a representative role but are also largely involved in the decision making process. The rectorate is responsible for the allocation of the budget that is negotiated through performance agreements with the Minister. At the same time they conclude performance agreements with the deans, whose position has been strengthened as well. The concentration of decision-making competences in the hands of the deans indicates a still existing mode of academic self-governance, although not with the same intensity as under the traditional chair system (Ordinarienuniversität) (Schimank, 2002). But maybe it is not the intensity of governance power that changed but rather the way they exercise their power, namely through peer reviews. The influence of academics on policies and resource allocation through peer reviews is not to be underestimated. Another new element in the governing body of the university is the introduction of the university council that holds basically a planning and supervising function. Their main responsibilities include the approval of the development plan, the elaboration of the performance agreements draft as well as the appointment of the rector based on a short list prepared by the senate and the rectorate (Sporn, 2003, p. 39). The council consist up to nine members (four members are nominated by the senate, four by the ministry and one by the council members itself). The University Council brought external stakeholders from outside universities into play. The intention behind the inclusion of people from industry was to strengthen links to economy and improve efficiency (OECD, 2003, p. 71). Referring to this, the scholars Laske and Meister- Scheytt  (2003) made an interesting observation: from around 140 members of University Councils almost 40% were recruited from the business sector and another 30% from the broader university sector. The remaining members had a civil service background. This unequal distribution of stakeholders caused concern about a “creeping privatisation” of the higher education sector (Fried, 2006, p. 103). However, competition has never occupied an important role in the governance of Austrian universities so far (De Boer et al., 2007). It was neither emphasized in any of the recent reform activities. However, with the implementation of the UG 2002 universities are obliged to define their individual institutional profiles. So far, this requirement hasn’t drawn any far-reaching consequences and is rather perceived as a support for the Ministry’s development plans than a competitive instrument between universities. Nevertheless, it is foreseeable that competition will gain in importance, especially regarding the popularity of international rankings of universities. The graph below sums up the main features of every period:

 

 

Before 1975

	Before 1975		UOG 1975		UOG 1993		UG 2002
General characteristics	Chair system (Ordinarien-universität)		Group university (Gruppen-universität)		towards NPM		NPM
Employment contracts	Public		Public		Public		Private
Appointment of professors	Minister		Minister		Rector		Rector
Participation of non-professorial staff	Low		High		Increasing		Low
Election rector	Senate		Senate		Minister		University Council
Role of rector	Representative		Representative		Manager    (limited)		Manager (comprehensive)
Public funding	State Accountancy (Kameralistik)		State Accountancy (Kameralistik)		State Accountancy (Kameralistik)		Lump Sum Budget (Globalbudet)
Private funding	Tuition fees        (until 1971)	No fees		No fees		Tuition fees          (2001 – 2008)

 

 

Figure 3. Characteristics of governance periods over time. Source: own diagram based on Pechar 2007.

 

Having analysed the different governance dimensions, we can now depict these changes in the governance equalizer.

 

Figure 4. Governance equalizer of Austrian HE. Source: own illustration based on de Boer et al., 2007)

 

The changes introduced by the University Act 2002 show a strong trend towards New Public Management in the governance of Austrian’s higher education institutions. However, to fully comply with the ideal type of NPM, state regulation and academic self-guidance would have to decrease further. In contrast, competition would need a significant boost upward. It almost seems as if an “Invisible hand” would manipulate the equalizer (Fried, 2006, p. 87). And there’s also the rub – critics claim that the governance equalizer reflects a „state-centric“ -perspective. Also the authors themselves recognize „that the composition of the dimensions of the equalizer always reflect a substantial contribution of the state“ (De Boer et al., 2007, p. 7 as cited in Fried, 2006, p. 87).

 

What does the future hold?

One of the main problems in the future will remain the chronic underfunding of Austrian universities in the face of growing student numbers. This brings back the on-off discussion about the introduction of tuition fees and admission restrictions. The recently elected government will most probably tackle this issue anew and rethink its position about the funding of university places by tuition fees as well as limited access through admission rules. With regard to the university’s competitiveness the conditions for young researchers will need to be improved as well. Also, academics must be given incentives (e.g. job protection, tenure track system) so they will opt for an academic career. Furthermore, university will have to collaborate with industry in Research and Development. These negotiations are still pending and will determine how the Austrian universities can position themselves on the international market. Time will tell…

 

Conclusion

This paper was produced in the context of the “Marihe-Day”, a workshop on the comparison of different university systems around the world using the governance equalizer. What has already become apparent in the course of my research for this paper, became even more evident in the presentations on the different governance systems around the world: There is no “one-size-fits-all” notion of “good governance”, no blueprint to be copied all over the world and no model that would be valid over time and space (Kohler & Huber, 2006). Governance always reflects a certain context, be it due a specific educational tradition (e.g. the Humboldtian tradition in the case of higher education in Austria and Germany), a political interest (e.g. centre-right wing government in Austria that pushed NPM approach forward) or any other kind of historical or regional peculiarity.

It is precisely the multi-dimensionality of governance that the equalizer illustrates. It shows that governance is not so much a static principle but rather a dynamic concept that is constantly being shaped and reshaped (Fried, 2006, p. 98). In this respect the governance equalizer meets its claim perfectly to serve as an analytical tool to make the multi-dimensionality of governance visible. At its best, governance should be a process of constant negotiation between all the stakeholders involved in Higher Education. To put it straight with the words of Ulrike Felt (2003) at the heart of the governance debate are the notions of autonomy and academic freedom, i.e., the new forms of responsibility towards society and of accountability towards stakeholders. (p. 14)

Whichever governance mode we choose for the most appropriate one, it is important not to forget that education is a public good and therefore all stakeholders should have a voice in the governance of Higher Education Institutions, even if the democratization of decision-making is tedious and tough.

 

References

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Websites

Eurypedia. The European Encyclopedia on National Education Systems. http://eacea.ec.europa.eu/education/eurydice/eurypedia_en.php

Erawatch. Platform on Research and Innovation policies and systems. http://erawatch.jrc.ec.europa.eu/