Abstract
France differs from other European countries for presenting a heterogeneous higher education and research system in which multiple and different institutions are involved. In this system, universities have undergone substantial changes in recent decades, both in their relations with the central government and at the corporate level. The chapter dwells in particular on the transformations that have occurred with regard to: strengthening and centralising the evaluation of academic activities; contracts between the university and the ministry; interventions to promote mergers between universities and aggregation of universities; policies to promote excellence. Performance measurement mechanisms play a central role in each of these transformations even though their establishment does not follow linear trajectories and encounters resistance, especially at the university level.
This study is part of the PRIN project ‘Comparing Governance Regime Changes in Higher Education: systemic performances, national policy dynamics, and institutional responses. A multidisciplinary and mixed methods analysis’.
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Notes
- 1.
The following paragraphs on the proportions of the French university system are taken with adaptations and updates from a study carried out on behalf of UNIRES by Antonietta Ciclista and Matteo Turri and published by Fondazione Crui: “How governance changes. Italian and European universities in comparison”, eds. Capano and Regini (2015).
- 2.
Some institutions are not monitored by MESRI: ‘Another 6 ministries are involved in supervising specific groups of higher education institutions: Ministry of Defence (supervises Ecole Polytechnique and other advanced technology institutions); Ministry of Health (supervises medical schools and other institutions offering health and social services programmes); Ministry of Agriculture (supervises Veterinary colleges and institutions offering Landscape, Agricultural engineering and Agrarian studies); Ministry of Environment (supervises Schools of civil engineering); Ministry of Culture and Communication (supervises Art schools and institutions teaching heritage and architecture); Ministry of Trade and Industry (Mining engineering schools)’. (ENQA, 2017).
- 3.
The ‘dotation globale de fonctionnement’ corresponds to the main part of the university funding from the government. In addition, there is a contractual allocation negotiated every 4 years, which represents about 20% of the allocations, and other specific allocations (contracts between the government and regions, Plan Campus, PIA etc.).
- 4.
The suppression of the SYMPA mechanism was also significant.
- 5.
Circulaire n° 89–079 du 24 mars 1989.
- 6.
Ordonnance n° 2018-1131 du 12 décembre 2018 relative à l’expérimentation de nouvelles formes de rapprochement, de regroupement ou de fusion des établissements d’enseignement supérieur et de recherche.
- 7.
Typically competitive financing of significant scale (approximately 1 billion euros for an average IDEX project, and from 5 to 25 million euros for a LABEX or EQUIPEX).
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Barbato, G., Pin, C., Turri, M. (2022). A Longitudinal Analysis of the Relationship Between Central Government and Universities in France: The Role of Performance Measurement Mechanisms. In: Caperchione, E., Bianchi, C. (eds) Governance and Performance Management in Public Universities. SIDREA Series in Accounting and Business Administration. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-85698-4_4
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