New “autonomy scorecard” to rank European Universitites

This is intended as a tool both at the national and institutional level, providing a reference for governments to benchmark progress on governance reforms vis-à-vis other systems. The ranking is also intended to help raise awareness among universities of the differences that exist in Europe.

The EUA says the scorecard will also help record trends and progress on a regular basis, contributing to the consolidation of the European Higher Education Area by improving comparability and promoting modernisation.

The starting point will be the findings of a forthcoming EUA Autonomy study. This is a comparative study of university autonomy across 34 countries based on more than 30 different indicators and focusing on four main areas of institutional autonomy:

• Organisational autonomy, for example, academic and administrative structures, institutional leadership, governance structures

• Academic autonomy, that is capacity to define study fields, student numbers, student selection, and the structure and content of degree programmes;

• Financial autonomy, including the ability to raise funds, own buildings, borrow money, and so on

• Staffing autonomy, or the ability to independently recruit, promote and develop academic and non-academic staff

The autonomy study will get off the ground with an official launch in Brussels at the end of this month, and will be completed by 2011.

EUA notes that increased autonomy is generally accepted, both by universities and by many governments, as necessary for universities to modernise and respond to new demands being placed on higher education. However, perceptions and terminology on what constitutes institutional autonomy vary greatly in Europe. “To compare systems reliably, more systematic mapping of universities’ autonomy and accountability through a set of common indicators is necessary,” says the EUA. The EUA sees comparability as crucial because autonomy is often linked to concepts like institutional performance, excellence, quality and efficiency.

The two-year project, supported by the EC Lifelong Learning Programme, will be carried out in conjunction with EUA project partners: The German Rectors’ Conference, Universities Denmark, the Conference of Rectors of Academic Schools in Poland (CRASP), and the University of Surrey. The launch of the scorecard is due to take place at the end of the project in the winter of 2011.