Reforming Universities in Italy: Towards a New Paradigm?

Abstract

The Law n. 240 approved on December the 30th 2010 aims at introducing deep modifications to the internal governance of Italian Universities. This chapter aims at understanding the underlying rationales, motivations and justifications of the actual reform and highlighting the ideas, principles, values and belief, thus cultural and cognitive frameworks, shaping the national academic system. This analysis relies on historical neo‐institutionalism and literature on models of governance. A longitudinal analysis of the reform text, from its presentation to its approval after several modifications is presented. It shows that the innovative character of the reform has been softened and affected by the traditional features of the Italian context. This chapter contributes to the discussion on academic reforms policy design: as stressed by the literature on the construction of public policies, the combination between institutions, interests and ideas and paradigms plays a major role in the ongoing reforms. The chapter also delineates the major importance of underlying policy designs in the reform process.

Appendix 1

Year	Regulation	Subject	Articles mainly considered in the discussion
1989	L. 168/1989	Institution of the MURST (Ministry for Universities and Scientific and Technological Research) and acknowledgment of autonomy to universities.	Title I art. 1
			Title II artt. 6–7
1997	L. 59/1997	“Bassanini Law” Decentralization from Government to the universities of administrative and managerial tasks (subsidiarity as main principle regulating the State and academic institutions’ relationships).	Title I art. 1
1997	L. 449/1997	Attribution to the universities of autonomy and responsibility over financial issues and recruitment, definition of activities and responsibilities of the universities’ Internal Evaluation Units.	Title III art. 51 par. 6
1998–1999	L. 204/1998 and Decree 381/1999	MURST becomes MIUR, introduction of the National Research Plan for Universities. New regulations for the recruitment of professors and constitutions of the CIVR.	L. 204/1998 art. 1–7
			Decree 381/1999 Title II art. 8, Title V art. 11
1999	L. 370/1999	Regulations concerning universities and scientific and technological research. ‘Osservatorio’ for evaluation changes into CNVSU, the Internal Evaluation Units are replaced by the NUVs.	Title I artt. 1,2,6
2001	Decree 165/2001	Competences of administrative and technical staff are decentralized to the universities.	Art. 41, Artt. 48
2005	L. 230/2005	Modification of the recruitment system.
2005	L. 43/2005	Regulations concerning the 3-year strategic plan of universities.	Art. 1
2008	L. 133/2008 and Decree 112/2008	Regulations concerning the improvement of public financial resources. They establish the possibility for universities to change their status from public bodies to not-for-profit private institutions (“Fondazioni”).	Artt.16
2009	L. 15/2009 and Decree 150/2009	Reform of the Public Administration enabling the Government to introduce regulations to improve production, efficiency, effectiveness and transparency of public administrations.	Title I and III, artt. 56 and 60 which modify Decree 165/2001
2008–2009	L. 1/2009	Regulations concerning the right to HE study, the merit recognition and quality improvement of the HE system.	Artt. 2 , 3
2010	DPR 76/2010	Regulation concerning the ANVUR, the National Agency for the Evaluation of Research.	Title, art. 1–3