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Academic Freedom, University Autonomy (Work in Progress) and Striving Towards Accountability: An Italian Perspective

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Academic Freedom Under Pressure?

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Abstract

This paper provides a critical overview of legislative attempts to strike a good balance between academic freedom, autonomy and accountability, through an analysis of the Italian constitutional model of academic freedom and the Italian legislation introducing accountability into the previous self-referential model of internal university governance.

The title refers to the famous analysis of Robert Berdhal, in “Academic freedom, autonomy and accountability in British universities”, published in Journal Studies in Higher Education, Volume 15, 1990, Issue 2, pp. 169–180, based on the same triad ‘freedom-autonomy-accountability’.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Middlehurst (2013).

  2. 2.

    See the Project Group UNIMI 2040 (2020), p. 14.

  3. 3.

    See Cassese (1990), p. 764; Pototschnig (1990), p. 39; Gasparri (2000), p. 628; Mangiameli (2001), p. 216; Fenucci (1991), p. 95; Poggi (1998), p. 177; Villone (1967), p. 745.

  4. 4.

    Baraggia (2016), p. 51.

  5. 5.

    Middlehurst (2013), p. 277.

  6. 6.

    D’Atena (1998), p. 3332.

  7. 7.

    See University Autonomy: Just One Step on the Long Road Ahead by A Marra in this volume.

  8. 8.

    Mazzarolli (1997), p. 77.

  9. 9.

    Baraggia (2016), p. 25.

  10. 10.

    Hochschul-Urteil (BVerfG, 29.05.1973 – 1 BvR 424/71; 1 BvR 325/72. 16). See Poli (2009), p. 797.

  11. 11.

    Cassese (1993), p. 83 ff.

  12. 12.

    See, for instance, the definition of “academic teaching” in BVerfGe 35, 79 (113).

  13. 13.

    Vesperini (2009), p. 197 ff.

  14. 14.

    D’Atena (2006), p. 111 ff.; Balduzzi (2004), p. 263 ff.; Mazziotti di Celso (1980), p. 177; Sorace (1996), p. 150.

  15. 15.

    See Project Group UNIMI 2040 (2020).

  16. 16.

    Vesperini (2013), p. 947. About the “hyper-regulation” (iperregolazione) phenomenon, see also Mari (2009), p. 673; Cassese (2001).

  17. 17.

    See Project Group UNIMI 2040 (2020), p. 15.

  18. 18.

    D’Atena (1998), p. 3332; Cassese (1990), p. 764; Cassese (1993); Gasparri (2000), p. 628.

  19. 19.

    A survey of the Italian legislation in the Osservatorio sull’Università (Università degli Studi Milano Bicocca) is available at https://www.osservatoriouniversita.unimib.it/, last accessed 4.2.2021.

  20. 20.

    Law no. 43 (31.3.2005), G.U. no. 75 (1.4.2005).

  21. 21.

    Italian National Agency for the Evaluation of Universities and Research Institute, ANVUR.

  22. 22.

    In the words of Mario Mauro: “In all probability, abolishing the legal validity of educational qualifications is still one of the best ways of guaranteeing the full legitimacy of those establishments which know how to teach properly”, debate at the European Parliament on Report A5-0183/2002 “on Universities and higher education in the European learning area”, 5 September 2002, available at https://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?pubRef=-//EP//TEXT+CRE+20020905+ITEM-003+DOC+XML+V0//EN, last accessed 4.2.2021.

  23. 23.

    Fraenkel-Haeberle (2016), p. 119 ff.

  24. 24.

    Minerva (2011), p. 1; Zeno-Zencovich (2011); Azzariti (2013), p. 2461; Vesperini (2013), p. 947 ff.

  25. 25.

    See the Project Group UNIMI 2040 (2020), p. 4.

  26. 26.

    Problems concerning academic recruitment are dealt with in detail in the book edited by Cavallo Perin et al. (2016); for a comparison between the Italian and the German systems, see in particular Banfi (2016), p. 43 ff. and Fraenkel-Haeberle (2016), p. 119 ff.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Milan, Milan, Italy

    Lorenza Violini

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  1. Lorenza Violini
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. German Research Institute for Public Administration, German University of Administrative Sciences Speyer, Speyer, Germany

    Margrit Seckelmann

  2. University of Milan, Milan, Italy

    Lorenza Violini

  3. German Research Institute for Public Administration, German University of Administrative Sciences Speyer, Speyer, Germany

    Cristina Fraenkel-Haeberle

  4. University of Milan, Milan, Italy

    Giada Ragone

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Violini, L. (2021). Academic Freedom, University Autonomy (Work in Progress) and Striving Towards Accountability: An Italian Perspective. In: Seckelmann, M., Violini, L., Fraenkel-Haeberle, C., Ragone, G. (eds) Academic Freedom Under Pressure?. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-77524-7_9

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