HE institutional autonomy is under siege across the world

A small group of international higher education and quality assurance experts got together and held an informal virtual conversation in June 2021. Our topic was the all-important issue of institutional autonomy.

Why this conversation again – and now? After all, this has been a much-discussed topic within higher education for many years. An excellent example is the Council of Europe Global Forum on Academic Freedom, Institutional Autonomy and the Future of Democracy held in 2019 and its ensuing Declaration.

We came together because, in our view, we are witnessing a disturbing strengthening of the forces that constrain that autonomy in various countries. And, also in our view, this situation calls for an emphatic response from those of us in the higher education community. Around the world, nationally, regionally and internationally, institutional autonomy is under siege and is an increasingly pressing issue.

What is institutional autonomy?

UNESCO defines “institutional autonomy” as “a degree of self-governance, necessary for effective decision-making by institutes of higher education regarding their academic work standards, management and related activities”. Institutional autonomy, in its longstanding and idealised form, is captured well by, for example, the Magna Charta Universitatum 2020 that states “…intellectual and moral autonomy is the hallmark of any university and a precondition of its responsibilities to society”.

More specifically, the European University Association addresses four dimensions of autonomy: organisational, financial, staffing and academic. These involve the autonomy to determine the internal organisation of the university, to decide its internal financial affairs, its management, salaries, recruitment of staff and its actions on admissions and its academic content, including its programmes, language of instruction and quality assurance.

As our group focused on this autonomy, we explored issues such as:

• Why has institutional autonomy continued to erode in so many countries – even as the higher education community continues to speak to the importance of preserving and enhancing this autonomy and, in some instances, takes significant action in this regard?

• What are the multiple forces constraining institutional autonomy and how does higher education counter them?

• Is the longstanding framing of autonomy less appropriate for the future? While many in the higher education community are, appropriately, committed to a traditional and longstanding view of institutional autonomy, does this traditional concept of higher education need modification in the 21st century?

• How might the higher education community fashion a more public-facing view of institutional autonomy going forward – addressing a future in which social responsibility and public accountability increasingly influence colleges and universities in countries throughout the world?

Our group identified three major categories of forces that are now constraining institutional autonomy.

These include, first, political and policy decisions by governments resulting in greater authority over the organisation, structure and academic activities of a college or university. For example, governments in a number of countries have emphasised career-based education and research at the price of the liberal arts, sometimes leading to reductions in, for instance, humanities or theoretical research staff to make way for vocational education.

Second, the group talked about economic forces, for example, public funding decisions perhaps leading to reductions in faculty hiring, student enrolment or changes in research priorities.

Third, our group discussed forces within colleges or universities themselves, such as weak university management and leadership that does not fully meet the challenge of supporting and strengthening institutional autonomy.

This can mean that, for instance, universities willingly surrender their appropriate autonomy in academic decision-making in order to obtain funding from various sources or to avoid conflict with government or corporate interests.

It was a sobering conversation. Examining both the questions and the constraints, we asked: Where do we go from here? What is a 21st century view of institutional autonomy? And we came up with three action steps for consideration.

We can:

• Frame the concept of autonomy to include more prominently current demands for greater social responsibility and accountability for higher education. Twenty-first century autonomy is about even more than academic freedom and freedom to manage our own internal affairs. It is about applying our freedom of action to address vital social issues, community and country needs and expanding our service to students.

When it comes to accountability, we need to acknowledge that the authority of our institutions is never free of obligations to government and society. The challenge here is to identify the range of constraints we are willing to accept and manage and to highlight those constraints that go too far – endangering autonomy of our universities.

• Take a critical look at our own behaviour within our institutions and ask ourselves about the price we pay and are willing to pay when we surrender academic decisions to obtain desired funding.

There is no free funding. All resources made available to us involve constraints. Do we accept public funding that forces us to eliminate or add programmes that we think are inconsistent with our institutional mission? Must we accept governments deciding the leadership of our institutions, our vice-chancellors, rectors or presidents? Or government decisions that determine the direction of our research?

In some countries, there is no alternative but to say “yes, we have to accept this”. However, there are also countries where institutions have alternatives and can counter these efforts and where, if we don’t, we help to weaken institutional autonomy, however unintentionally.

• Begin to talk about how we expand the conversation about the value of institutional autonomy beyond higher education to include the public sphere, building and promoting a powerful case for institutional autonomy not only to ourselves, but to the public and society – students, families, taxpayers, government officials and funders.

How do we describe the value of institutional autonomy to society and our students? Do we talk about the enormous benefit of academics in making academic judgments, for example, about standards for success, degree requirements, the content of curricula and how having academics make these decisions helps students and society more than if others made them?

Do we talk about how our universities can model responsible autonomy and freedom while acting to meet social needs and being accountable for the expenditure of public funds?

Are we acting as public intellectuals and making the case for the contribution of autonomy to the future growth and development of our countries?

Towards 21st century institutional autonomy

How might we do some of this? Some ideas offered by various colleagues during our conversation include:

• Explore establishing benchmarks of 21st century institutional autonomy that may be applied globally.

• Bring colleagues together to identify acceptable constraints on autonomy (for instance, social responsibility and appropriate accountability) and develop tools to take action against constraints that reduce this autonomy by, for example, government actors or others.

• Make institutional autonomy an even more important issue for international organisations, perhaps through a statement on institutional autonomy for the 21st century.

• Reduce reliance on public funding of higher education, with more emphasis on private fundraising, student fees and endowments.

• Develop capacity-building programmes to strengthen university management and leadership efforts to protect institutional autonomy.

The fast-growing forces against institutional autonomy demand an urgent response. It is vital that we formulate a 21st century version of this autonomy, strengthen our own practices to maintain autonomy instead of contributing to its weakening and make a powerful case to the public for why this matters.

Judith Eaton is president emeritus of the Council for Higher Education Accreditation (CHEA), United States, and Stamenka Uvalic-Trumbic is former head of higher education at UNESCO and former advisor to the CHEA president. This article is based on the first of a series of virtual conversations among international experts on higher education and quality assurance initiated by the authors.