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Changes in university ‘autonomy’ with successive visions of Denmark’s future

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Abstract

Legislation in the 1970s, 1990s and 2003 made major changes to the status and operations of Danish universities and the role they should play in creating different imaginaries of Denmark and its place in the world. In the education literature, ‘institutional autonomy’ is key indicator of shifts in the idea and role of the university but this was not always the term used in Denmark. Instead, key terms are the ‘self-steering’ university, the ‘self-owning’ university, ‘aim and frame’ steering and ‘commando-way’ steering. The Danish words are explored ethnographically, and ‘autonomy’ is used as an analytical, not an emic, term. Whereas institutional autonomy literally means self-legislating, the analysis starts from the premise that it is never absolute: it always involves a negotiated relationship between the university and government, and these negotiations are influenced by how ‘the university’ is constituted at different times. This article focuses on changes to the legal construction of the university, its relation to government, internal organisation and leadership in different reforms. Each period will explore the ways in which the university was (or was not) ‘autonomous’, and why each new status was thought suitable for the role universities were to pay in the realisation of different visions of Denmark’s future.

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Notes

  1. This echoes UNESCO’s Recommendations on institutional autonomy, which oblige member states ‘to protect higher education institutions from threats to their autonomy coming from any source’ (UNESCO 1997 § 19).

  2. These projects included: ‘New Management, New Identities? Danish university reform in an ethnographic perspective’ (Danish Research Council 2004-6), ‘New forms of management, intervention and stress’ (Danish Fund for Research on Work Environments 2007-9), ‘University Reform, Globalisation and Europeanisation’ (URGE) (EU FP7 Marie Curie IRSES, 2010-13), ‘Follow the Money. Patterns of resource allocation within Danish universities’ (Dansk Magisterforening, academic union, 2010-13), ‘Universities in the Knowledge Economy’ (UNIKE), (EU FP7 Marie Curie Initial Training Network (ITN) 2013-17), ‘Practicing Integrity’ (Danish Ministry of Higher Education and Research, Agency for Research and Innovation, 2017-19), ‘European Universities – Critical Futures’ (Danish Research Council 2019-2023).

  3. ‘Problemet er, at vi har en ydelse her, som man ikke får i Rumænien, så det er klart, at de kigger herop for at tage en uddannelse, men vi er nødt til først og fremmest at sørge for, at vores skattemidler går til at uddanne danske unge’.

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Acknowledgements

Much of the research on university reforms in 1970s, 1990s and 2003 was carried out in collaboration with Jakob Williams Ørberg, to whom very many thanks for a wonderful academic partnership. The analysis of changing meanings of autonomy owes much to a conversation with David Ciepley on 3 February 2023 and I am very grateful to him for sharing his outstanding knowledge of the history of corporations. Johanna Kallo, Jussi Välimaa, Fazal Rizvi and other participants provided very helpful comments on an earlier version at the inspiring conference at Turku on 9–10 February 2023.

Funding

This article draws on research conducted in the following projects, of which Susan Wright was PI: ‘New Management, New Identities? Danish university reform in an ethnographic perspective’ (Danish Research Council 2004–6), ‘New forms of management, intervention and stress’ (Danish Fund for Research on Work Environments 2007–9), ‘University Reform, Globalisation and Europeanisation’ (URGE) (EU FP7 Marie Curie IRSES, 2010–13), ‘Follow the Money. Patterns of resource allocation within Danish universities’ (Dansk Magisterforening, academic union, 2010–13), ‘Universities in the Knowledge Economy’ (UNIKE), (EU FP7 Marie Curie Initial Training Network (ITN) 2013–17), ‘Practicing Integrity’ (Danish Ministry of Higher Education and Research, Agency for Research and Innovation, 2017–19), ‘European Universities – Critical Futures’ (Danish Research Council 2019–2023).

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  1. Danish School of Education (DPU), Aarhus University, Tuborgvej 164, 2400, Copenhagen, NV, Denmark

    Susan Wright

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Wright, S. Changes in university ‘autonomy’ with successive visions of Denmark’s future. High Educ (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10734-024-01224-y

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