Abstract
The rising importance of higher education policy among contemporary states and societies and the apparent move towards knowledge economies has been linked to overarching global reform dynamics and trends that affect higher education policy processes. One of these trends has been labeled as ‘agentification’. Agentification refers to the process of using agencies for the purposes of developing and implementing domain-specific policies, where such agencies are supposed to fulfill an ‘intermediary’ or ‘buffering’ function. Building inter alia upon typologies of agencies, this chapter examines in detail the changing role and fortunes of agencies in the domain of higher education policy of two countries – Norway and Australia –over a period of approximately 30 years. The analysis finds persistent and significant discrepancies in national attempts at agentification despite some broader convergence tendencies. Major discrepancies are manifest in the speed in which reforms were implemented and the different degrees of stability of institutional bodies in each country. It further finds that despite all reforms, in both countries the state ultimately retains significant control over higher education policy processes, which makes it difficult for agencies to fulfill a genuine buffering function.
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Notes
- 1.
- 2.
See: http://www.ssb.no/en/utdanning/statistikker/utuvh (02.08.2017).
- 3.
However, the trend was less pronounced in Norway compared to the other Nordic countries.
- 4.
- 5.
See: https://data.oecd.org/rd/gross-domestic-spending-on-r-d.htm (02.08.2017).
- 6.
In the current Australian context, the designation ‘higher education’ is generally reserved for universities and their activities, whereas ‘tertiary education’ is used to refer to all providers of post-secondary education, including not only universities but also the many Technical and Further Education (TAFE) institutes and Registered Training Organisations (RTOs).
- 7.
- 8.
- 9.
See: https://data.oecd.org/rd/gross-domestic-spending-on-r-d.htm (02.08.2017).
- 10.
- 11.
See: https://www.regjeringen.no/en/dep/kd/organisation/Departments/id613/ (02.08.2017).
- 12.
It should be pointed out that formally all universities and university colleges are also subordinate institutions to the ministry. See: https://www.regjeringen.no/en/dep/kd/organisation/kunnskapsdepartementets-etater-og-virksomheter/id2344548/ (02.08.2017).
- 13.
See: http://www.nokut.no/en/About-NOKUT/ (02.08.2017).
- 14.
CTEC was established in 1977 by the Liberal Party government, through merging the previously existing Australian Universities Commission (AUC) and some governmental agencies overseeing activities in the tertiary education sector (Harman 1984; Marshall 1990). AUC was a coordinating agency established in 1959 and which was modelled – like so many other higher education governing bodies, policies and processes in Australia up until the present – after an already existing British counterpart.
- 15.
For example, in 2013 such departments included cumbersome creations such as the Department of Industry, Innovation, Climate Change, Science, Research and Tertiary Education.
- 16.
See: http://www.arc.gov.au/history-arc (02.08.2017).
Excluded was all medical or health science research with a clinical orientation. Responsibility for research grant allocations for these forms of research continues to be with the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC), which was formed already in 1937 and gained the status of an independent statutory agency in 1992 (Larkins 2011: 168).
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Jungblut, J., Woelert, P. (2018). The Changing Fortunes of Intermediary Agencies: Reconfiguring Higher Education Policy in Norway and Australia. In: Maassen, P., Nerland, M., Yates, L. (eds) Reconfiguring Knowledge in Higher Education. Higher Education Dynamics, vol 50. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-72832-2_2
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