Higher Education Quarterly, Vol. 62, Nos. 12 (2008)

Higher Education Quarterly, 0951–5224 Volume 62, Nos. 1/2, January/April 2008, pp 1–2 Editorial After a transitional pe...

Author: Editor: Lee Harvey

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Higher Education Quarterly, 0951–5224 Volume 62, Nos. 1/2, January/April 2008, pp 1–2

Editorial After a transitional period, we are, as Editors, establishing a rhythm for the scrutiny and processing of papers offered for publication in Higher Education Quarterly. We aim to continue the journal’s track record of disseminating research into higher education that contributes to debate about current issues in the field, and applies new empirical data to this end. We seek contributions that address issues from a broad perspective, wider than that of a single institution, so as to make connections and provide transferable experiences that will be instructive to an international readership. In the last year, the flow of papers has been steady, with 68% coming from overseas. Topics range from institutional governance, widening participation, teaching and professional development, to changing career paths, diversifying higher education systems, and the re-shaping of student profiles. We endeavour, in each issue, to include a spread of subject matter from the UK and elsewhere, and we particularly wish to encourage comparative material. Although international studies can be difficult to fund and achieve, they are especially helpful in drawing lessons at national level about common problems. We hope, therefore, that Higher Education Quarterly will continue to be in the forefront of publishing such work. We are also pleased to receive reviews of recent monographs, including collective reviews of groups of publications in contiguous fields, and are in the process of appointing a new book reviews editor to replace Dr Peter Wright, who has retired from the post after many years of excellent service.We wish him well, and thank him for the significant contribution that he has made. There have been a number of changes to the Editorial Board. We are grateful to the retiring members, Professors Elaine El-Khawas, Robert Cormack and Simon Marginson, and to Sir Howard Newby for their many collective years of support and service. We welcome on to the board Dr Richard Blackwell, Professor Sue Clegg, Dr John Douglass, Professor Richard James, Professor Luanna Meyer and Professor Jose-Gines Mora, who between them reflect the increasingly global reach of the journal. We wish to put on record our appreciation to all those individuals who assist by refereeing papers that are submitted, and especially those who, © 2008 The Authors. Journal compilation © 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford, OX4, 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA.

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Higher Education Quarterly

because of their willingness, receive requests on a regular basis from Ruth Harris, the Managing Editor, whose sterling support we also acknowledge. Our task would not be possible without her ongoing diligence in providing timely updates and reminders. The journal is aimed at academic researchers and students in the field of higher education, academic and professional managers, as well as policy makers and opinion formers. Please keep your contributions coming; we look forward to hearing from you. Professor Lee Harvey Editor Dr Celia Whitchurch Associate Editor

© 2008 The Authors. Journal compilation © 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.


Towards a ‘Post-Public Era’? Shifting Frames in German and Australian Higher Education Policy David Pick, School of Management, Curtin University of Technology

Abstract Higher education in Germany and Australia is being subject to pressures of market forces, internationalisation and financial constraints. This had led to both systems experiencing significant crisis and change over the past 20 years. In this paper, frame analysis is used to compare the changing policies in each nation and examine the extent to which the landscapes of each system have been transformed. It is found that higher education policy in both nations underwent significant change in the late 1980s and again in the early 2000s, impacting on system structures and institutional forms. There is now evidence of further change occurring in both nations that may mark a transition to a ‘post-public era’ in higher education.This analysis reveals a degree of convergence in the neo-liberal policy trajectories of both nations but differences in the rate and nature of the transitions taking place.

Introduction Since the late 1980s, the higher education systems in Germany and Australia have been experiencing significant challenges and large-scale change. Pressures on both systems have come from internationalisation, increasing competition from abroad, financial constraints and responding to the market force imperative espoused in the neo-liberal reform agenda. The works by Ostermann (2002), Ash (2006), and Orr, Jaeger and Schwarzenberger (2007) describe significant change occurring in the German higher education system. The situation is described by Welsh (2004) as an emergence of a ‘new paradigm’ in German higher education policy and by Weiler (2000, p. 334), who argues that its ‘long © 2008 The Author. Journal compilation © 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford, OX4, 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA.

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and rather sleepy habitat has all of a sudden become exciting, controversial and lively’. The literature relating to Australia similarly includes descriptions of change brought about by: engagement of universities with the global higher education market (Currie and Newson, 1998; Marginson and Rhoades, 2002; Marginson, 2006), corporatisation (Slaughter and Leslie, 1997), and institutional reorganisation (Harman, 2000). The conditions are well summarised by Coady (2000), Marginson and Considine (2000), and Marginson (2002), whose work suggests that Australian universities are facing a critical turning point, particularly in regard to their role, function and identity. While there has been much-published research documenting the changes to the higher education systems of both countries, there is less research that attempts to conceptualise and compare these changes. Pick (2006) deploys frame analysis to examine shifts in Australian higher education policy, finding that significant changes in policy directions occurred in the late 1980s and early 2000s that are transforming the higher education landscape. It is argued here that this technique can usefully be extended to examine higher education policy in other countries and undertake comparative analysis. This paper employs frame analysis to compare the effects of shifts in higher education policy over the past two decades in Germany and Australia, and assess the extent to which this comparison can inform debate about the future directions of both systems. This is especially significant given Marginson’s (2007) claim that we are on the cusp of a ‘post-public’ era in higher education: in which the momentum towards deregulation and corporatisation will be balanced by a renewed concern about public purpose and conditions, often with universities themselves defining the public interest. This era will be framed by markers of market competition . . . and also by the self-regulating specialist missions that are publicly responsible and accountable. (Marginson, 2007, p. 118)

Frame analysis has been widely used to examine issues of public policy, most noticeably by Rein (1983) and Schön and Rein (1994). In this context, frame analysis involves the surfacing and examining of ‘underlying structures of belief, perception and application’ that shape policy positions (Schön and Rein, 1994, p. 23). In deploying this approach, policy making is connected to large-scale social, cultural and economic phenomena, raising questions about the extent to which policy decisions define or are defined by broader interests and ideologies. Frame analysis can usefully be applied in exploring and predicting policy trajectories and (often intractable) contemporary policy issues because it has heuristic value in that it makes complex social situations accessible to, and © 2008 The Author. Journal compilation © 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

Frame Analysis of German and Australian Higher Education 5 understood by, a broad range of interested practitioners and researchers (Rein, 1983). This article employs ‘rhetorical frames’ and ‘policy frames’ as described by Schön and Rein (1994). Rhetorical frames underlie the policy process. They refer to broad interpretations of an issue, referring to the general story, value system and political ideas within which actions take place, representing a point from which people interpret and understand issues. Rhetorical frames are utilised to argue and persuade in political debate, and, as such, serve to win over public opinion to a particular set of ideological influences and policies. Policy frames inform policy practice and are used to construct policy situations in ways that reflect the ideological influences implicit in particular rhetorical frames. The next section analyses the rhetorical and policy frames that have shaped the higher education systems of Germany and Australia over the past 2 decades, with the aim of providing a comparative perspective on the broad social, cultural and political dimensions of the policy debates and outcomes in a way that has both theoretical rigour and practical relevance. Frame shifts in German and Australian higher education policy Rhetorical frames Germany In Germany, the rhetorical framing of higher education policy appeals to a symbolism established and justified by calling on the ideals advanced by Humboldt, particularly the freedoms of teaching, learning and research. Since 1989, while belief and faith in the Humboldtian university has remained strong, it has been reinterpreted from an inwardlooking orientation (Bildung) to a perspective that focuses on competition and recognises the need for greater international engagement (wake-up call). Bildung. Two significant phenomena influenced German higher education during the decade after 189. The first was the reunification of Germany and the second was a continuing increase in university enrolments that brought about massification of the system. Reunification was a significant watershed, and the trend towards massification placed severe demands on higher education institutions. Policy in this period is characterised by Ash (1997a, 2006) as ‘renewal’ and ‘normalisation’ © 2008 The Author. Journal compilation © 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

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characterised by large-scale changes and a few sweeping measures (Abwicklung) that focused on the internal problems of transforming the universities of what was East Germany so that they were compatible with those in West Germany. At this time, the Humboldtian ideal of the unity of teaching and research underpinned the structures and institutional forms. At the heart of attempts to come to terms with the challenges of reunification and massification lay a rhetorical framing grounded in a deeply held belief and faith in Bildung – one of the cornerstones of the Humboldtian view of higher education. Bildung refers to moral and intellectual improvement implying character development of the individual achieved through scholarship. This requires academic independence of the teacher and student founded on two aspects: first is a financial guarantee from government to ensure academic freedoms of Lehrfreiheit (freedom of university faculty to teach and research) and Lernfreiheit (allowing students to develop and progress at their own pace) (Lundgreen, 1997), and second, the unity of research and teaching. The influence of Humboldtian ideals is manifest in an inward-looking policy orientation. This led to the rapidly changing higher education environment at the international level going largely unnoticed by policy makers. Furthermore, as student enrolments grew during the 1980s, the system began to fall into a crisis characterised by underfunding, overcrowding, ageing infrastructure and overlong completion times (Pritchard, 2006). During the 1990s, the state of crisis intensified, and it became apparent that the Humboldtian vision as it existed was not working. This led to a reinterpretation of the Humboldtian ideals of autonomy, diversity and academic status in the light of the growing influence of the global higher education ‘market’. The staff–student ratio had grown to 1:47, and the development of Fachhochschule and Berufsakademie focusing on education for professional work meant that Ausbildung (education for a profession) was conflicting with traditional Bildung (Pritchard, 2006). In the mid-1990s, a number of initiatives aimed at restructuring the management and decision-making processes in the German higher education system developed. For example, Rhoades and Sporn (2002) note the implementation of quality assurance projects by the Higher Education Information System (HochschulInformations-System) and the establishing of the Centre for Higher Education Development (CHE). Both public and private sectors were involved in these developments through institutions such as the VolkswagenStiftung and the Bertelsmann Foundation. Policies and programmes arising from these and other foundations and institutions, combined with a growing realisation that the focus on internal issues had © 2008 The Author. Journal compilation © 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

Frame Analysis of German and Australian Higher Education 7 led to Germany falling behind Anglo-American higher education on the global stage, created an environment in which a different framing of higher education policy emerged. Wake-up call. The ‘wake-up call’ is expressed in a 1999 federal government policy document Mut zur Veranderung (Courage to Change) (Ostermann, 2002). This document crystallises the approaches and ideas for reform that had been developing through the 1990s. According to Pritchard (2006), Mut zurVeranderung marks an increased awareness of decline in the German higher education sector compared with global standards and recasts the ideals of Humboldt according to a neo-liberal perspective. This is apparent in the emergence of the application of market forces through state-induced competition as a dominant theme in the higher education policy debate (Orr, Jaeger and Schwarzenberger, 2007). This theme is manifest in the delimiting of ‘unsuccessful’ and ‘successful’ discipline areas on purely financial criteria (Pritchard, 2006), the perceived need to engage with the global higher education market, and the prominence of economic efficiency and diversification (Ostermann, 2002). The neo-liberal nature of the ‘wake-up call’ is also described by Welsh (2004), who identifies increasing emphasis on evaluation, accountability, competitive research funding and the introduction of student fees. This particular framing of higher education policy is characterised by a growing influence of neoliberalism to the point where it penetrates the policy discourse. This is particular noticeable in the managerial lexicon used by policy makers, for example: targets, efficiency, competition, markets, accountability, performance measurement, student fees, goal agreements, performance targets, objectives, evaluation and results, quality assurance, and mission statements.

Australia In Australia, the rhetorical framing of higher education policy connects to a strong belief in the symbolism and language of nation building. During the period since the late 1980s, there is evidence of a shift in the rhetorical framing of higher education policy to justify an intensification of a neo-liberal policy agenda that transformed the interpretation of nation building from emphasising national engagement with the global economy (global competitiveness) to one grounded in a belief in market forces (privatisation) as a fundamental driver of national prosperity. © 2008 The Author. Journal compilation © 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

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Global competitiveness. At around the same time as Germany was grappling with the challenges of reunification and a rapid growth in enrolments, Australian universities were coming to terms with a new set of imperatives associated with engaging in the global higher education market.This perspective finds its expression in a neo-liberal rhetoric that the future of the nation depends on being globally competitive (to be a lean and mean competitor in the global marketplace), and that higher education would be a major element in achieving this aim. The Dawkins Report (1988) articulates this policy agenda, marking the beginning of a process that would transform the landscape of Australian higher education. Using Smyth (1995), the reforms outlined in the Dawkins Report (1988) can be located within the internationally driven neoliberal reform agenda evidenced by the view that the private sector should have a significant role, that the higher education system operate more like a private market, and that there be greater emphasis on the contribution higher education can make to economic restructuring and competitiveness (particularly in respect to creating a ‘flexible’ workforce). Slaughter and Leslie (1997) identify the effects of the Dawkins policy. They argue that as a result of the neo-liberal agenda espoused in the Dawkins Report (1988), Australian higher education has become more directed towards economic wealth creation, forcing universities to turn away from traditional concerns with liberal education for undergraduates and towards areas that generate income (particularly business and commerce). Privatisation. During the early 2000s, the rhetorical framing of higher education shifted from an interpretation of nation building through global competitiveness to a perspective that nation building is best achieved by allowing market forces and private business to work relatively unimpeded, and, as important nation building sites, universities should behave more like private corporations. This framing is evident in the Nelson Report (2003), in which the privatisation of higher education is an important, but undisclosed, theme.The Nelson Report (2003, p. 8) begins with a familiar appeal to the national interest, identifying higher education as ‘vital to Australia’s economic, cultural and social development’.The report then strikes a neo-liberal tone. In a similar vein to Dawkins (1988), the Nelson Report (2003) focuses on how many people the sector employs, how much revenue it generates, the size of the contribution higher education makes to gross domestic product (GDP), and is supportive of the view that policy must reflect the need for Australian universities to remain globally competitive. The Nelson © 2008 The Author. Journal compilation © 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

Frame Analysis of German and Australian Higher Education 9 Report does, however, go further than Dawkins in that it extends and intensifies the importance of the market, deregulation and greater participation of the private sector in higher education, placing them centre stage. Although the Nelson Report (2003) explicitly rejects an ‘unfettered free market’, there is a clear intention to create a competitive and commercialised higher education system that marks a frame shift to an intensified form of neo-liberalism. This is expressed in Baird’s (2007) account of the processes of university governance, in which ‘quality audits’, ‘quality assurance systems’ and management tools such as ‘balanced scorecard’ are increasingly being used. Policy frames Germany The policy frame-shift in German higher education reflects the growing influence of neo-liberalism as described in the previous section. This influence is most clearly demonstrated in the gradual decline of state intervention. It is possible to detect a change in the framing of policy from one that emphasised centralised control (regulation) to one that favours a more decentralised system in which it is envisaged that universities will become more competitive in the evolving higher education market (Bologna). Regulation. In this policy frame, the priorities for higher education were academic self-governance and the unity and freedom of teaching and research ensured by significant state control. The regulation policy frame is characterised in the high level of intervention of the state in the running of universities. The Länder governments exercised a large degree of control over the financing and spending of universities, took responsibility for the regulation of state examinations (Staatsexamen) and played a significant role in the appointment of professors (Ostermann, 2002). Running through this policy frame is a constant theme of creating a nationally standardised system, and at the same time maintaining and protecting the traditional German university in the classic Humboldtian mould. This notion underpinned policies, most notable of which was an attempt by the federal government to create a nationally consistent system. Pritchard (2006) argues that the Federal Framework Act (HRG), first passed in 1976 (and amended since), provided a set of parameters within which the Länder governments would work. The HRG also © 2008 The Author. Journal compilation © 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

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informed higher education policy in the ‘higher education renewal laws’ adopted by all Länder governments in 1991 that involved the imposition of West German structural and governance arrangements in the Länder of what was East Germany (Ash, 1997a). By the late 1990s, policy makers recognised that in a rapidly changing environment, tight government regulation and control impeded development and had led to the dysfunction and decline of German higher education. According to Ash (1997b), massive underfunding of the system as demand for places grew and a stubborn resistance to reform by major stakeholders limited the effects of the HRG. This recognition of the need for change led to the regulation policy frame being gradually replaced by a more outward-looking approach that acknowledges the need to produce both high-quality research and well-trained professionals (Ash, 1997b). This was reinforced by the Bologna process, which brought to the fore a consideration of the international standing and compatibility of German university degrees. Doubts about the relevance and future of the HRG grew as a new set of policy priorities emerged. Bologna. The Bologna Accord of 1999 is an agreement between European Union member nations in which the harmonisation of European higher education qualifications systems is a key feature (Wächter, 2004). Most noticeable is the introduction of two-cycle higher education programmes consisting of a 3-year bachelor degree and a 1-year master degree. According to Pritchard (2006), this process marks one of the most significant changes to the German higher education in the post-war era, representing an attempt to improve the global marketability of German higher education and gain a significant share of international students. In addition to the Bologna process, other shifts in German higher education policy can be identified. According to Ostermann (2002), amendments to the HRG in 1998 gave rise to an introduction of a standard number of semesters for degree programmes and more structured courses. This is a significant departure from the Humboldtian principles of Lehrfreiheit and Lernfreiheit in favour of a growing application of neo-liberal policy ideas. Most noticeable has been the opening up of the system to market forces and a growing emphasis on diversification (Welsh, 2004; Pritchard, 2005). This has involved the introduction of student fees of between €100 and €500 per semester in around half of the 16 Länder. Diversification of the system is manifest in the recent competition for federal research funding in the Exzellenzinitiative. Three universities (Technical University of Munich, Ludwig-Maximilian © 2008 The Author. Journal compilation © 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

Frame Analysis of German and Australian Higher Education 11 University of Munich and University of Karlsruhe) submitted winning bids and have formed a group of élite universities dubbed EliteHochschulen Deutschlands. In spite of the emergence of a new policy frame, resistance remains a significant feature of the higher education policy landscape. Pritchard (2006) identifies an inability and unwillingness to change and improve the quality of teaching and research, and Welsh (2004) describes significant opposition from the Länder governments, who are able to use their constitutionally protected veto power and autonomy in determining higher education funding to block reform. Indeed, Welsh (2004) characterises the German situation as ‘organised anarchy’ and a ‘professional bureaucracy plagued by logjam’. Reforms that are deemed urgent are delayed in a policy process that is time consuming and marred by stakeholder conflict.The emphasis has thus become changing the role of the state from one of ‘rowing’ to ‘steering at a distance’, in which funding is linked to outputs and performance (Orr, Jaeger and Schwarzenberger, 2007). Although patchy in its implementation, such an approach is leading to that which Welsh (2004) identifies as a decentralising trend of moving financial and decision making from Länder governments to universities so that they now have greater say in the distribution of funds, planning and competition. According to Lundgreen (1997), this has resulted in growing functional differentiation not within universities but between the different types of higher education institutions (the Hochschulen, Fachochschulen and Berufsakademie) that are allowing a mixture of state funding and cooperative arrangements with private firms that offers up opportunities for German higher education to become internationally competitive not through imitating competitors but through offering different and possibly better programmes. In spite of the Bologna process delivering a shock to the system, bringing about change, calls for further significant reform continue. Australia The shift of the higher education policy frame in Australia is quite different to that which occurred in Germany where neo-liberalism is a fairly new feature of the higher education landscape. In Australia, the change in the framing of policy is characterised by an intensification of an already existing neo-liberal agenda from prioritising the international competitiveness of universities (supporting national engagement with the global economy) to one that has a central theme of freeing-up the market in higher education. © 2008 The Author. Journal compilation © 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

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Supporting national engagement with the global economy. The Dawkins Report (1988) sets out a particular policy framing of higher education. It was one that prioritised contributions universities should make to national economic goals through increasing national income (narrowly defined as GDP) by ‘exporting’ Australian higher education (Lafferty and Fleming, 2000). A federal minister for education amplified this view, stating that ‘to survive and prosper in a rapidly changing world, universities must embrace the market place and become customer-focused business enterprises’ (Currie, 1998, p. 9). A number of actions reflect this commitment. In pursuing the neo-liberal reform agenda, the federal government tried to create a ‘level playing field’ so that the national higher education ‘market’ would not be distorted. This meant that all higher education institutions had to be of a similar standing, hence the ‘unified system’ created through mergers and re-designating colleges of advanced education and institutes of technology as ‘universities’. A second major action was the deliberate expansion of university places to create a mass system, and at the same time requiring students to contribute to their tuition fees (making them ‘customers’ rather than students). As a result of the Dawkins Report (1988), universities in Australia began to look and behave less like public institutions and more like private corporations. Marginson and Considine (2000) argue that the Australian higher education system now includes cases of a neoliberal extreme dubbed the ‘enterprise university’. They describe such universities as being characterised by strong executive control, corporatisation, academic entrepreneurialism, private sector practices and isomorphism (a restricted menu of commercial options and strategies based on imitation of perceived successful institutions). In the ‘enterprise university’, previously valued characteristics of uniqueness and innovation tend to be employed more as corporate marketing and public-relations devices rather than underlying principles. The market. The market policy framing of higher education is manifest in the commitments made in the Nelson Report (2003). Most notable is the intention to deregulate the system, particularly with regard to the setting of student fees and employment practices, further exposing universities to market forces and increasing their dependence on private sources of funding (international fee-paying students, fee-paying domestic students and research partnerships with private corporations). The Australian federal government has applied a number of strategies and techniques over the past decade with the aim of reinforcing these policy commitments. One of the major policy tools has been funding. Since the © 2008 The Author. Journal compilation © 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

Frame Analysis of German and Australian Higher Education 13 mid-1990s, the level of government support for higher education has changed little. In 1995 and 2004, federal government spending on higher education was A$4.3 billion (Department of Education Science and Training, 1997; Department of Education Science and Training, 2005). This is reflected in a fall of 6 per cent in expenditure per student during the period 1995–2003 (one of only four OECD countries to decline), placing Australia as one of the lowest in the OECD (OECD, 2006). Marginson (2007) identifies two other mechanisms favoured by neoliberal reformers. The first is the ranking of universities. There are national and international systems of ranking universities according to teaching and research performance that together provide publicly available indicators of the relative national or international performance of individual institutions that according to the neo-liberal perspective will provide ‘market signals’ to potential ‘consumers’ of higher education. The second is the emphasis on ‘diversity’ – one of the key themes of the Nelson Report (2003). The Federal Minister for Education Science and Training made several policy announcements during 2007 that underline diversity as a policy goal (Department of Education Science and Training, 2007). Universities are already responding. According to Marginson (2007), the University of Melbourne is marking itself out as being different from other Australian universities by shifting to graduate entry to professional degrees and introducing a small number of generalist undergraduate degrees. The eventual outcomes of this policy direction are uncertain; however, it may be that the emphasis on ‘diversity’ will lead to increased inequality. As Marginson (1993) points out, the neoliberal playing field might be level, but the players are not. In such a situation, competition widens and reinforces the existing hierarchy of universities privileging the elite, Group of Eight research-intensive universities, in the race for resources, faculty staff and students (Marginson, 2006). Although higher education systems of Germany and Australia are different in many respects, it is possible to detect the influence of neoliberalism in both nations, especially in relation to internationalisation, charging student fees, creating a domestic higher education ‘market’, diversity, competition and deregulation. Neo-liberal reform in Germany is the basis of a strategy to address persistent problems, but change has been slow. Ash (2006) points out that in Germany, successful national reform depends on agreement at three policy levels: federal, Länder and higher education institutions.Within each of these three levels are varied perspectives and interests working across and against each other, for example, inter-Länder competition, varying local concerns and priori© 2008 The Author. Journal compilation © 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

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ties, and a mistrust of universities in Länder governments (Welsh, 2004). Ostermann (2002) argues that this has led to Reformstau (reform backlog), characterised by an inability or unwillingness to change because there is little interest in reform from powerful groups whose status might be threatened (for example, university academics and students). There are now calls for more rapid change, and supporters of this position could point to Australia where such reform created an open and dynamic system that competes effectively on the global stage. In Australia, higher education is a major export earner. There are around 200,000 international students enrolled in universities (IDP Education, 2006), contributing over A$7.5 billion annually to the national economy (Department of Education Science and Training, 2005).These figures are impressive, but they mask some serious systemic weaknesses brought about, at least in part, through neo-liberal reform. According to Marginson and Considine (2000), such policies have resulted in Australian universities becoming increasingly vulnerable to problems associated with detached leadership, the erosion of academic cultures, centralised decision making, the thinning out of university communities, the endangerment of the valuable social and cultural role of universities, and the development of universities that are more anxious and unstable. Towards a post-public frame? The framing of higher education policy in the German and Australian contexts each articulate in quite different ways underlying cultural values and the accepted and familiar constellation of ideas associated with the development of policy in each nation. In the case of Australia, the past two decades of reform are characterised by the playing out of a neoliberal reform agenda with an external focus on the global higher education market. In Germany, the same period is characterised by a growing influence of neo-liberalism tempered by the need to achieve consensus between key stakeholders and a strong Humboldtian tradition of academic freedom protected by the state (Table 1). These trends are important for policy development in the light of Marginson’s (2007) assertion that we are entering a ‘post-public era’. Perhaps the work of Marginson (2007) is pointing to a further shift in the framing of higher education policy both in Germany and Australia to a ‘post-public frame’, in which resistance to neo-liberalism is a key element. The reconfiguring of policy is evident in both nations. In Australia, the Labor (centre-left) federal government elected in © 2008 The Author. Journal compilation © 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

Wake-up call: Global competitiveness: Privatisation: Bildung: Returning German Creating a lean and Universities must be Individual academic higher education to a mean Australia able to reliant on private autonomy (Lehrfreiheit global leadership compete in the global sources of funding and Lernfreiheit) position economy guaranteed by state funding of higher education Bologna: The market: Regulation: Policy frames Supporting national Bologna Process. Intensification of the State control of higher engagement with the Higher education must neo-liberal policy education. global economy: respond to market agenda Unifying West and East Adoption of a forces German higher neo-liberal policy education agenda Creating a unified system Creating a mass system Creating a national higher education ‘market’

Rhetorical frames

The courage to change 2000–present

Maintaining traditions 1985–2000

‘Dawkins’ frame 1988–2002

‘Nelson’ frame 2003–present

Germany – the Humboldtian University tradition

Australia – nation building

TABLE 1 Shifting frames in Australian and German higher education policy

Frame Analysis of German and Australian Higher Education 15

© 2008 The Author. Journal compilation © 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

Economies of scale Increased participation Expanding the system

Making Australian universities competitive in the global education market

Dawkins Report (1988)

Problem

Dominant themes

Government policy papers


Nelson Report (2003)

Making Australian universities more like private corporations Industrial relations reform Diversity Deregulation

Efficiency, quality and competition

Rapid expansion of the system Financial needs of the sector Decline of higher education

Lack of international competitiveness The recognition of unresolved long-term problems affecting the higher education system Creating a nationally Creating an unified higher education internationally system competitive higher education system Performance, autonomy, competition and diversification Changing role of government from ‘rowing’ to ‘steering’ Framework for Higher Bologna Declaration Education Act (1976) (1999) Framework Act for Higher Framework Act for Education (1985) Higher Education (1998) The Courage to Change (1999)

The courage to change 2000–present

Maintaining traditions 1985–2000

‘Dawkins’ frame 1988–2002

‘Nelson’ frame 2003–present

Germany – the Humboldtian University tradition

Australia – nation building

TABLE 1 Continued

16 Higher Education Quarterly

Frame Analysis of German and Australian Higher Education 17 November 2007 has signalled a change in education policy. Details are still sketchy, but it is clear that no extra funding will be directed towards higher education in the short term. However, education generally is a stated priority for the new government, and the prime minister has promised an ‘education revolution’. Whether or not this revolution will reach universities and what shape it will take if it does remains to be seen. In Germany, if the federal government abolishes the HRG, this will hand complete control over higher education to the Länder governments, and the Bologna process has yet to run its full course. Conclusion The shifting policy stances with regard to higher education in Australia and Germany both reveal influences from neo-liberalism, marketisation and the positioning of national policy in relation to the internationalisation of higher education. Both share similar tendencies, but there are significant differences of approach in each nation. In the case of Australia, it is possible to identify a ‘frame tip’ – a point in time when there is a distinct and identifiable shift. In Germany, it is more transitional. Many authors describe change in the German system as ‘drawn-out’ (Welsh, 2004) and ‘slow’ (Ostermann, 2002; Pritchard, 2006). Australia is a case of an introduction and intensification of the neo-liberal reform agenda whereas Germany is a case of reluctant experimentation. Pritchard (2006) argues that the corporatist approach in Germany makes it unlikely that a radical shift to a neo-liberal trajectory will occur in the short term. In contrast, Australian higher education has been less resistant to neo-liberal reform, and the exposure of its universities to market forces has led to a degree of homogenisation within the system and a tendency to imitate their Anglo-American counterparts and global competitors. German higher education suffers significantly from underfunding and a sclerotic policy environment, and Australian universities are reaping the consequences of neo-liberal policies. There are lessons for Germany from Australia because as Weiler (2000) points out, even though policy makers and stakeholders are waking up to the new environment, they are still trying to figure out what to do. There are also lessons for Australia from Germany in defining that which Marginson (2007, p. 128) terms ‘the contemporary idea of a university’. The German system with its complex, multilayered arrangements of shared and limited powers, and Australia with its centralised system look to be plotting different routes to and through a ‘post-public era’. As Marginson (2007) argues, the challenges for both systems are how to balance © 2008 The Author. Journal compilation © 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

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marketisation, deregulation and corporatisation with a renewed concern for public purpose and conditions. Higher education policy in both nations is set to undergo further change. The question is whether or not this will intensify or reduce the negative effects of neo-liberalism. Acknowledgements The author would like to thank Professor Jörn Mundt of the Berufsakademie Ravensburg for his comments on early drafts of this paper. References Ash, M. G. (1997a) Unification in German Higher Education: ‘Renewal’ or the Importation of Crisis? In M. G. Ash (ed.), German Universities Past and Future: Crisis or Renewal? Providence, RI: Berghahn Books, pp. 84–109. Ash, M. G. (1997b) Introduction. In M. G. Ash (ed.), German Universities Past and Future: Crisis or Renewal? Providence, RI: Berghahn Books, pp. vii–xx. Ash, M. G. (2006) Bachelor of What, Master of Whom? The Humboldt Myth and Historical Transformations in Higher Education in German-Speaking Europe and the USA. European Journal of Education, 41 (2), pp. 246–267. Baird, J. (2007) Taking It on Board: Quality Audit Findings for Higher Education Governance. Higher Education Research and Development, 26 (1), pp. 101–116. Coady, T. (ed.) (2000) Why Universities Matter: a Conversation about Values, Means and Directions. St. Leonards, NSW: Allen & Unwin. Currie, J. (1998) Introduction. In J. Currie and J. Newson (eds.), Universities and Globalization: Critical Perspectives. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, pp. 1–13. Currie, J. and Newson, J. (eds.) (1998) Universities and Globalization: Critical Perspectives. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. Department of Education Science and Training (1997) Selected Higher Education Statistics. Canberra: Commonwealth of Australia. Department of Education Science and Training (2005) Finance 2004. Canberra: Commonwealth of Australia. Department of Education Science and Training (2007) New Diversity and Structural Adjustment Fund for Universities (media release). Canberra: Commonwealth of Australia. http://www.dest.gov.au/ministers/bishop/budget07/bud09_07.htm, last accessed 18 June 2007. Dawkins, J. (1988) Higher Education: Policy Statement. Canberra: Commonwealth of Australia. Harman, G. (2000) Institutional Mergers in Australian Higher Education since 1960. Higher Education Quarterly, 54 (4), pp. 343–366. IDP Education (2006) International Students in Australia Survey. http://www.idp.com/ research/fastfacts/article406.asp, last accessed 14 March 2006. Lafferty, G. and Fleming, J. (2000) The Restructuring of Academic Work in Australia: Power, Management and Gender. British Journal of Sociology of Education, 21 (2), pp. 257–267. Lundgreen, P. (1997) Mythos Humboldt Today: Teaching, Research and Administration. In M. G. Ash (ed.), German Universities Past and Future: Crisis or Renewal? Providence, RI: Berghahn Books, pp. 127–148. Marginson, S. (1993) Education and Public Policy in Australia. Melbourne: Cambridge University Press. © 2008 The Author. Journal compilation © 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

Frame Analysis of German and Australian Higher Education 19 Marginson, S. (2002) Nation-building Universities in a Global Environment: the Case of Australia. Higher Education, 43 (3), pp. 409–428. Marginson, S. (2006) Dynamics of National and Global Competition in Higher Education. Higher Education, 52 (1), pp. 1–39. Marginson, S. (2007) University Mission and Identity for a Post-public Era. Higher Education Research and Development, 26 (1), pp. 117–131. Marginson, S. and Considine, M. (2000) The Enterprise University: Power, Governance and Reinvention in Australia. Oakleigh: Cambridge University Press. Marginson, S. and Rhoades, G. (2002) Beyond National States, Markets and Systems of Higher Education: a Glonacal Agency Heuristic. Higher Education, 43 (3), pp. 281–309. Nelson, B. (2003) Our Universities: Backing Australia’s Future. Canberra: Commonwealth of Australia. OECD (2006) Education at a Glance. Paris: OECD. Orr, D., Jaeger, M. and Schwarzenberger, A. (2007) Performance-based Funding as an Instrument of Competition in German Higher Education. Journal of Higher Education Policy and Management, 29 (1), pp. 3–24. Ostermann, H. (2002) ‘Rotten at the Core?’ The Higher Education Debate in Germany. German Politics, 11 (1), pp. 43–60. Pick, D. (2006) The Re-framing of Australian Higher Education. Higher Education Quarterly, 60 (3), pp. 229–241. Pritchard, R. (2005) The Influence of Market Force Culture on British and German Academics. Comparative Education, 41 (4), pp. 433–454. Pritchard, R. (2006) Trends in the Restructuring of German Universities. Comparative Education Review, 50 (1), pp. 90–112. Rein, M. (1983) Value-critical Policy Analysis. In D. Callaghan and B. Jennings (eds.), The Social Sciences and Policy Analysis. New York: Plenum Press, pp. 83–111. Rhoades, G. and Sporn, B. (2002) Quality Assurance in Europe and the US: Professional and Political Economic Framing of Higher Education Policy. Higher Education, 43 (3), pp. 355–390. Schön, D. and Rein, M. (1994) Frame Reflection: Toward the Resolution of Intractible Policy Controversies. New York: Basic Books. Slaughter, S. and Leslie, L. L. (1997) Academic Capitalism: Politics, Policies and the Entrepreneurial University. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins Press. Smyth, J. (1995) Introduction. In J. Smyth (ed.), Academic Work: the Changing Labour Process in Higher Education. Buckingham: The Society for Research into Higher Education/The Open University Press, pp. 1–16. Wächter, B. (2004) The Bologna Process: Developments and Prospects. European Journal of Education, 39 (3), pp. 265–273. Weiler, H. N. (2000) States, Markets and University Funding: New Paradigms for the Reform of Higher Education in Europe. Compare, 30 (3), pp. 333–339. Welsh, H. (2004) Higher Education in Germany: Reform in Incremental Steps. European Journal of Education, 39 (3), pp. 359–375.



Horizontal and Vertical Differentiation within Higher Education – Gender and Class Perspectives Caroline Berggren, Department of Education, Göteborg University

Abstract The study outline differences among classes and genders within higher education. Because of the expansion of places of study, higher education has lost some of its former selectivity. The matriculation of one full birth cohort into Swedish higher education was studied.The results showed that the enrolment of working- and intermediate-class women had increased, while women from the upper-middle class, also previously enrolled in higher education, had expanded their educational options becoming involved in prestigious and previously male-dominated programmes.

Introduction Class differentiation in higher education has been a frequently studied topic within sociology of education for a long time. Some research suggests that the social class selection has decreased (Shavit, Arum, and Gamoran, 2007), while others claim that the competition is increasing (Arnot, David and Weiner, 1999). There is also a third alternative saying that the patterns of gender and class differentiation are continuing but are assuming other forms (Delamont, 2001). However, it is difficult to draw any certain conclusions about how the selection is shaping and reshaping from the available studies and to answer the question in a simple way. The main reason for this is that higher education has undergone major changes associated with considerable expansion within the industrial countries (Halsey, 1993). For example, the privilege on the labour market that was previously almost guaranteed after university studies has changed to only be associated to a limited selection of study © 2008 The Author. Journal compilation © 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford, OX4, 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA.

Differentiation within Higher Education

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programmes within the large “umbrella” of higher education, which includes the well-established old universities through to the recently established university colleges. Studies from Sweden as well as from several other countries show that the already privileged groups of students were more likely to choose long and prestigious programmes, such as law and medicine, and to study at traditional universities (Andres and Guppy, 1991; Kivinen and Rinne, 1991; Davies and Guppy, 1997; Kivinen and Ahola, 1999; Gustafsson, Andersson, and Hansen, 2000; Kivinen, Ahola and Hedman, 2001; Ayalon and Yogev, 2005). ‘Privileged’ is usually associated with affluence and well educated but often implies male. Despite women having increased their participation in higher education in all types of sectors, men are still more likely to be found within the most prestigious fields (Andres and Guppy, 1991; Hodges Persell, Catsambis and Cookson, 1992; Jacobs, 1995; Arnot, David and Weiner, 1999; Gustafsson, Andersson and Hansen, 2000; SOU 2004) and particularly within natural sciences and technology (Davies and Guppy, 1997; Jacobs, 1999; Ayalon, 2003). This paper deals with both the gender and the class structures and how they intersect. The higher education programmes are divided into attractive programmes and not so attractive programmes and courses, and they are also divided into fields, which implies that the analyses consider both the vertical and the horizontal differentiation within higher education. The issues of prestige or attractiveness will also be raised. A commonly used definition of prestigious education is based on the level of economic return after graduation (Davies and Guppy, 1997; SOU 1993; Erikson and Jonsson, 1996b); however, this definition implies a gender bias.

Higher education: between previous school experiences and the labour market Educational background To get a place of study in higher education in Sweden and particularly a place at an attractive programme, the student has to be eligible and be able to compete for the place.The requirements for eligibility depend on the field of study. Several of the attractive programmes pose additional qualification requirements in mathematics and natural science. Moreover, there are more applicants than places of study available at the attractive programmes, which lead to a selection of the applicants with © 2008 The Author. Journal compilation © 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

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respect to grades obtained in upper secondary school or scores on the Swedish Scholastic Assessment Test (SweSAT). The general conclusion from various studies is that young women in every class achieve, on the average, higher grades than their male counterparts (Arnot, David and Weiner, 1999; Gustafsson, Andersson and Hansen, 2000; Skolverket, 2004). The conventional wisdom that the class difference in educational achievement is larger than the gender difference (Delamont, 2001; Öhrn, 2002) might soon have to be revised. In the Nordic countries there are indications that women in the class just below, achieved, as well as men in the class just above (Svensson, 1998; Björnsson, 2005; Berggren, 2007). A different picture emerged when looking at the outcome of the SweSAT, where men from upper-middle class achieved the highest scores. An explanation is the self-selection, in that only a limited subset of each age group takes the test (Mäkitalo, 1994). Few men from the working class take the test, and the highest achieving young women from the upper-middle class do not need to take the test, because they may enter due to their high grade-point averages from upper secondary school (HSV, 1996; Reuterberg, 1997, 1998; Cliffordson, 2004). The structure of the educational system and what types of programmes and courses that are offered, constructs the limits (or forms the framework) for the individual. Higher Education is an umbrella term that beside the traditional academic disciplines, also includes post uppersecondary educations such as advanced technology (e.g. engineers) and nurse and teacher training. This means that educations primarily chosen by women, both the prestigious and the ordinary alternatives, are offered within higher education. For men, education for a profession is offered within higher education, while the ‘traditional’ male trainings such as building worker, car mechanic or electrician are offered within upper secondary school. In other words, men are not forced to pursue studies within higher education in order to obtain a decent employment to the same extent as are women. In Sweden, as in other Western countries, it is the students from the privileged families that have made the educational choices that lead to a place at the most prestigious programmes within the universities. The class difference within these sought-after programmes does not seem to be declining (Andres and Guppy, 1991; SOU (2000, Ayalon and Shavit, 2004) and Ayalon and Yogev (2005). On the other hand, recent studies show that the gender difference has declined. It is the young women who have increased their participation in previously male-dominated fields. They have increased their level of performance, for example in math© 2008 The Author. Journal compilation © 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.


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ematics and science (Svensson, 1998; Arnot, David and Weiner, 1999; Öhrn 2002), and can enter prestigious study programmes at the university. However, they are reluctant to choose a prestigious programme that is gender atypical. Despite good grades in mathematics, that path tends to be avoided (Ayalon, 2003; SOU, 2004). Gender and class affiliation also influence the perception of what are suitable educational alternatives (Reay et al., 2001; Archer, 2003). The feeling of being in the right place or in the wrong place, is likely to have a strong influence on the choice. It is known that working-class students need, on the average, higher grades to make the transition to a higher educational level, compared to students from upper-middle class (SOU, 1993); Erikson and Jonsson, 1996a). Maybe the working-class students need high grades to be convinced that they are capable. For females, there probably are obstacles against choosing a “traditional” male programme (such as, technology) where a clear majority of the students are men, where the teachers are men, and where the content and teaching methods have been developed by men. For men, choosing a ‘traditional’ female programme entails a loss in power, prestige and status (Croxford, 1994; SOU, 2004). Prestige and attractiveness In Sweden the different universities are not as clearly ranked according to prestige, as is the case in many other countries (Davies and Hammack, 2005). The universities offer many different kinds of programmes, both prestigious and not so prestigious. On the other hand, some of the recently established university colleges can only award the bachelors degree. In Sweden, universities and university colleges are state financed, even though a few are privately held or are set up as foundations. There are no tuition fees. The admission system is centralised, so the same regulations hold for the whole country. In previous research, there have been several ways of defining prestige or status of different educational choices. Economic returns on the labour market (Erikson and Jonsson, 1996b; Davies and Guppy, 1997; Ayalon and Shavit, 2004) is a frequently used measure. However, the returns on the labour market, are different for men and women (Ljunglöf, 2004; SCB, 2004). The highest positions in society (such as member of boards in large companies) are almost inaccessible for women, which might influence their expectations and thereby their educational choices (Andersson, Fürth and Ingvar, 1997; Mickelson, 2003; SOU, 2004). Other indicators of attractiveness are scores on © 2008 The Author. Journal compilation © 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

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matriculation diploma (Ayalon and Shavit, 2004) or average SAT scores among those admitted (Hodges Persell, Catsambis, Cookson and Peter, 1992; Davies and Guppy, 1997). There are some contradictions between the use of indicators based on economic returns and academic qualifications, such as admission points. Some programmes are very attractive in the sense that very high points for admission are required. Some examples are speech pathology and therapy, dietetics and physiotherapy, which primarily attract women (SCB, 2003b). However, graduates from these programmes are offered comparatively low economic returns on the labour market. There does not seem to be much of a discussion regarding the opposing outcomes of the used measures. In this study, a constructed attractiveness index was used. It is based on grade-point averages from compulsory school (the index will be described in greater detail in the method section). Labour market In a Swedish survey (Andersson, Fürth and Holmberg, 1997), young men and women stated that education and work was important, while leisure time and flexible working hours were not seen as important.Work was supposed to be interesting and independent, and a positive working climate and nice colleagues to cooperate with was demanded by both genders. Only a small gender difference in favour of men could be seen in the valuation of a high salary and in the wish to become a manager. Whether this is an indication that women do not value these aspects of working life as much as men, or if it is an adaptation to reality was not analysed further. On a general level, the Swedish results do not seem to deviate much from the views that, for example the Scottish youth hold (Tinklin et al., 2005), with the possible exception of the demand for flexible hours to be able to combine family and career. Both young men and women in the Scottish study were aware of the gender segregated labour market and the difficulties that go with a non-traditional occupational choice. The liberal and broad-minded attitudes about career that young people seem to hold, unfortunately do not appear to have much influence on the labour market. The labour market in Sweden has a reputation of being highly gender segregated. This is partly caused by the fact that traditional female care and housework is organised as paid labour on the market, compared to countries where it is organised as non-paid work within the family (SOU, 2004). © 2008 The Author. Journal compilation © 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.


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Gender segregation can be described in three ways. One is the horizontal gender segregation that implies that men and women have different occupations, work within different sectors, have different employers and different places of work. The second is the vertical gender segregation, which is about the gendered career making where men are more likely to reach the highest positions. The third, is the internal gender segregation, which implies that men and women who hold the same occupation, and work at the same place, are steered toward different types of tasks or have chosen different specialities (SOU, 2004). Corresponding forms of gender segregation is likely to be found within the educational sector. In Sweden, men have mainly been employed within the private sector and women within the public sector. During the 1990s there was a recession, and both men and women were exposed to unemployment. At the end of the decade the private sector had almost fully recovered, but employment within the public sector was still at a comparatively low level (SCB, 2003a). It is likely that women turned to education in order to adapt to a changing labour market or to obtain a profession less exposed to labour market changes (Berggren, 2006). This is an example of how the horizontal gender segregation contributes to a higher inclination among women to choose higher education. Turning to the vertical segregation, women are directed to higher education in order to get an employment with decent working conditions, and a safe income. If they want to make a career as well, they are directed towards the prestigious programmes, since it is much more difficult, and in some sectors impossible to improve the working situation without it (SOU, 2004). The internal gender segregation is also present within higher education. The majority of the students in the medical programme1 are women; however, when choosing specialist competence, after having obtained their medical degree, the field is segregated so that men dominate surgery and women geriatrics.The speciality that is male dominated also provides the highest economic reward (Spjut, 2000). There is also an accumulation of men within the most prestigious and well-paid sectors within law and engineering (Abrahamsson, 2002; SOU, 2004). This internal gender division probably exists in other countries too; it is for example reported in Israel (Ayalon, 2003). Aim of the study The overall aim is to study whether or not the expansion of higher education has resulted in an increased equalisation with respect to © 2008 The Author. Journal compilation © 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

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gender and class within the student population with reference to matriculation in various fields of higher education study programmes. The study will focus on horizontal and vertical gender and class segregation, and analyse the influence of the two major entrance paths (that is, via upper-secondary school grades or via the SweSAT) on differentiation.

Method The empirical basis of the study was a database formed primarily from register data from Statistics Sweden. The registers were linked together at the individual level. All persons who were born in 1974, and who lived in Sweden at the age of 16 were included. These person’s actions in relation to the educational system could be studied for more than a decade; that is, from the beginning of the 1990s until the early 2004.

Variables Attractive study programmes For this study it is of great interest to define and measure degrees of attractiveness of study programmes. However, relying on academic ability as measured by grade point average (GPA) or SweSAT scores is difficult in Sweden, since there are several admission quota groups (e.g., for admission on the basis of GPA from upper-secondary school or on the basis of the SweSAT), which leads to multiple cut-off points for the same programme. Instead an attractiveness index has been constructed (FUR, 2005), which is based on the GPA from compulsory school, obtained at the age of 16, and which is available for almost all individuals born in the period 1972–1984 (the GPA value is missing for about 4 per cent of the population). A mean for each programme was calculated from the individual GPA of those students who were admitted for the first time. This ‘programme-mean’ was based on admissions during the period 1993–2002 to make it less exposed to momentary variations. Those programmes with the highest mean GPA were defined as attractive. The attractiveness was calculated separately for men and women, since the apprehension of attractive education is highly influenced by gender. The attractive programmes, according to this index, form 20 per cent of all programmes in higher education. © 2008 The Author. Journal compilation © 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.


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Fields A division into fields was made from an aggregation of programmes with similar orientation. Four major clusters were distinguished: 1. Humanities and social sciences, which also includes law, business and psychology; 2. Natural sciences, which for example includes mathematics, biology, and pharmacy; 3. Technology, which also includes architecture; and 4. Medicine and odontology, which also includes veterinary. There was also a cluster of ‘Other’ including, for example, journalism, agriculture, art, music and speech pathology and therapy. Since the ‘Other’ group was very heterogeneous, it will only be included in the descriptive statistics and not analysed further.

Gender and Class The class variable is based on a Swedish socio-economic status (SES) index, which closely corresponds to the Erikson, Goldthorpe and Portocarero class scheme (Erikson and Goldthorpe, 1992; SOU, 1993; Breen, 2004). A categorisation into three classes is used, based on the occupational status of the parents of the students. The occupational status is defined according to: (1) income from employment or selfemployment; (2) the expected education corresponding to the held position; (3) trade union association; (4a) for working class, whether the position involves production of goods or services; and (4b) for higher classes, whether or not it is a management function. The information is obtained from the census of 1990; additional information is also collected from the 1985 census. Upper-middle class, SES 1, includes higher-grade professionals, administrators, officials and self-employed with academic degree. Intermediate, SES 2, consists of middle and lower middle class, self-employed without academic degree and farmers. Working class, SES 3 is lower-grade technicians, skilled and unskilled workers. The group of indeterminable, SES 0, is a heterogeneous group, to a large proportion composed by immigrants. The entire cohort born in 1974 consists of 112,948 individuals, of which 51 per cent are men (N = 57,870), and 49 per cent women (N = 55,078). © 2008 The Author. Journal compilation © 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

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GPA Information about GPA from upper secondary school was not available for 18,852 students. This means that almost 17 per cent of the total population has not completed upper-secondary education. The dropout is not random; it is highly dependent on class. Almost 25 per cent of the individuals from working class do not have any upper-secondary school leaving certificate, while for those from upper-middle class, the corresponding share is 10 per cent. This is one of the selection instruments into higher education. The SweSAT, numbers of tests taken This test is administrated twice a year, during spring and autumn. It is optional to take the test. The variable shows how many times the test is taken, not the results on the test. It is assumed to reflect the motivation for entering higher education. The reason for not using the scores on the test is that only a subset of the individuals has taken the test; that is 43 per cent (n = 48,462). This test is used as an additional selection instrument into higher education. Analytical techniques In all the models used the dependent variable in the analyses is dichotomous and the basic model shows the odds for entering or not entering different alternatives in higher education for different social classes. To investigate the effects of the admission system on the composition of the student population grades from upper-secondary school and number of times the SweSAT has been taken, are entered as continuous variables. Their relative importance is assessed through comparisons between more and less complex models. All analyses are done separate for men and women so differences within each gender become visible. In addition to the usual descriptive statistics, binary logistic regression is applied (Pedhazur, 1997; Miles and Shevlin, 2001). In a binary logistic regression, the dependent variable can only assume two of each other exclusive values. For example, matriculated in higher education on an attractive programme, or not. Only the first matriculation was counted. Whether or not the student has continued the study programme or has changed his or her mind soon after matriculation was left out of consideration. It is possible to enter higher education both autumn and spring terms but the offering of programmes at spring is substantially © 2008 The Author. Journal compilation © 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.


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reduced. Autumn and spring matriculations were merged into matriculations during the academic year to remove the seasonal variation. No tests of significance are done, since all analyses are performed on a complete cohort, and since this is a very large group the test statistics would be inflated. The emphasis in the analysis, therefore is on the relative size of different effects, rather than on statistical significance. Differentiation into and within higher education Women are in the majority within higher education (55 per cent). The organisation of the educational system pushes women to study for academic degrees. Since late 1970s, previous college training, particularly in demand for women (e.g. nursing and teaching) has been incorporated into higher education. Consequently, for women, fewer low-level educational programmes lead directly to an occupation. Women also are pushed by the labour market to obtain academic degrees. Due to its horizontal gender segregation, the labour market has different standards for men and women. The public sector, women’s principal employer, has standardised requirements stating that in general, an academic degree is needed in order to be employed within health care, social work or education. Men, on the other hand, are more likely to be employed privately, where the demands are not as formalised. Looking at attractive programmes only, there were an equal number of students from the upper middle and the intermediate classes, despite the smaller population from the upper-middle class (see Table 1). Although more women than men enter higher education, more men enter attractive programmes. In this cohort, 11,255 students have entered an attractive programme and among them 6,570 (58 per cent) were men. It contrast, it is interesting to note that in all social classes the female participation in higher education is generally reduced to a minority when studying in the attractive programmes only. One explanation is of course the definition of an ‘attractive programme’. In this study, economic criteria have deliberately been avoided.The reason, on one hand, is that some programmes are still sought after despite their low economic returns on the labour market, and on the other, that women’s choices are likely to be judged as less profitable (i.e. men’s performance is usually considered of higher value; Bourdieu, 2001; Abrahamsson, 2002). Confusingly, a Master of Engineering is considered as ‘attractive’, despite the low admission rates into several of the engineering programmes leading to a Master. This is because, when creating the ‘attractiveness’ index, gender was an important principle. Engineering © 2008 The Author. Journal compilation © 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

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Higher Education Quarterly TABLE 1 Class and gender distribution in total population and in higher education

Class

SES 1 SES 2 SES 3 SES 0 Total

Gender

W M W M W M W M

Distribution total population

Matriculation any course or programme

Matriculation attractive programmes

N

%

N

%

N

%

11,534 11,956 26,657 27,777 15,630 16,705 1,257 1,432 112,948

10.2 10.6 23.6 24.6 13.8 14.8 1.1 1.3 100.0

8,299 7,793 13,587 10,613 4,882 3,202 361 332 49,069

7.3 6.9 12.0 9.4 4.3 2.8 0.3 0.3 43.4

2,201 3,118 1,978 2,760 435 593 71 99 11,255

1.9 2.8 1.8 2.4 0.4 0.5 0.0 0.0 10.0

Note: SES 1 = upper middle class, SES 2 = intermediate class, SES 3 = working class, SES 0 = indeterminable. SES, Socio-economic Status.

programmes are very attractive among men. These programmes have many places of study, and accounts for almost 50 per cent of those programmes defined as attractive. In the next analyses, binary logistic regression will be applied. This method makes it possible to partition out the total influence into several components and to see which of them contribute to the difference among men and women and the type of higher education programmes they choose. Beside social class, the influencing factors are GPA from upper secondary school and the SweSAT. As far as previous school achievement is concerned, there is a clear and predictable differentiation (Table 2). Women within each class have a higher GPA than their male counterparts. The largest class difference lies within the decision of whether or not to take the SweSAT. Confirming results from previous studies (Reuterberg, 1997; Willingham and Cole, 1997), men are more successful than women in this type of test. Vertical segregation within higher education In the following analyses, the population is restricted to those who have completed upper secondary school and have a valid GPA, that is 94,096 individuals of the total 112,948. © 2008 The Author. Journal compilation © 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.


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The vertical segregation divides the candidates entering an attractive programme, and those entering one of the less attractive programmes, or courses. The class differentiation for enrolling into attractive programmes was very high (Table 3). Model 1 shows the total effect of class origin. SES 3 is left out because it constitutes the reference group to which the other two classes relate. The odds that a man from the upper-middle class would enter an attractive study programme were eight times higher than a man from the working class. A similar difference occurred for women; the odds were seven times higher that a woman from the upper-middle class would enter an attractive programme than a working class woman. The class differences, when analysing the odds for entering other study programmes and single subject courses, were comparably low (when the odds are approaching one, the differences between the groups diminish). The study alternatives that are not so attractive, the ‘Other’, are also more inclined to recruit students from higher classes than from lower ones. This is probably an alternative for those students from higher classes whose education has not been sufficiently successful to enter the prestigious fields. Several researchers (Arnot, David and Weiner, 1999; Kivinen, Ahola and Hedman, 2001; Lucay and Reay, 2002; Ayalon and Shavit, 2004) have described how continuing studies is perceived to be a natural thing among students from higher classes. When the previous school achievement, the GPA, was added to model 2, the differentiation according to social class decreased considerably. The reduction in odds was largest among women, for both upper-middle class, and intermediate class as opposed to working-class women, and this was true for both the attractive and the other programmes (e.g. among men entering attractive programmes, a reduction in odds was recorded from 8.03 to 4.76, or 3.27, which is 41 per cent of 8.03). This TABLE 2 Cohort GPA and SweSAT, by gender and class Men

Women

SES 1 SES 2 SES 3 SES 1 SES 2 SES 3 % complete upper sec school 91 Mean GPA 3.40 % taken the SweSAT 64 Mean result SweSAT 1.2 Mean no. of SweSAT taken 2.6

86 3.15 39 1.0 2.2

75 2.98 20 0.9 2.0

90 3.58 67 1.0 2.4

86 3.33 50 0.9 2.2

GPA, Grade-point Average; SweSAT, Swedish Scholastic Assessment Test. © 2008 The Author. Journal compilation © 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

76 3.15 32 0.7 1.9

8.03 2.62

7.34 2.57

2.89 1.91

2.37 1.73

4.76 2.13 9.36

M 3.71 1.92 10.28

W

M

M

W

Attractive

Other

Attractive

W

Model 2

Model 1

Dependent

2.51 1.81 1.43

M

Other

1.80 1.56 2.08

W

2.68 1.66 10.92 1.59

M

Attractive

Model 3

SES, Socio-economic Status; GPA, Grade-point Average; SweSAT, Swedish Scholastic Assessment Test.

SES 1 SES 2 GPA Nos SweSAT

Independent

2.38 1.53 14.17 1.63

W

1.52 1.51 1.24 1.61

M

Other

1.25 1.32 1.95 1.62

W

TABLE 3 Odds ratios; entering higher education on attractive programmes versus other programmes and courses

32 Higher Education Quarterly



33

indicates that a large part of the class differentiation is due to the differences in school achievement between social classes. In model 3, the number of SweSATs taken have been added (i.e. the total class difference is partitioned further). SweSAT was supposed to increase the chances for the under-represented groups of students to enter higher education; however, the outcome was the opposite. The SweSAT contributed to increased class differentiation in all types of higher education studies, and most strongly among men (e.g. among men entering attractive programmes there was a reduction in odds from 4.76 to 2.68, or 2.08, which is 44 per cent of 4.76. Among women, the reduction was 36 per cent).

Horizontal segregation within higher education The following analyses were restricted to the attractive programmes only. The distribution over different fields was more balanced within the group of women compared to men (Table 4). Somewhat unexpected, there was a majority of women within natural sciences. Men and women take up about equal numbers of places of study in attractive natural science programmes. Biology, geology and pharmacy are also included in this field, which contributes to the predominance of women. More men than women study within the field of technology that can lead to a

TABLE 4 Participation in attractive programmes within fields, by gender and class Men

Humanities and social sciences Natural sciences Technology Medicine and odontology Other attractive programmes Total

Women

SES 1

SES 2

SES 3

SES 1

SES 2

SES 3

702 22.5% 236 7.6% 1,851 59.4% 213 6.8% 116 3.7% 3,118 100%

509 18.4% 209 7.6% 1,828 66.2% 107 3.9% 107 3.9% 2,760 100%

108 18.2% 53 8.9% 398 67.1% 24 4.0% 10 1.7% 593 100%

859 39.0% 321 14.6% 602 27.4% 259 11.8% 160 7.3% 2,201 100%

779 39.4% 336 17.0% 560 28.3% 148 7.5% 155 7.8% 1,978 100%

175 40.2% 85 19.5% 111 25.5% 36 8.3% 28 6.4% 435 100%


34


Master of Engineering. However, there was a large number of women within this field too, since the engineering programmes numerically dominate the places of study. Studying gender differences, it is clear that women have made large inroads into higher education. Since the 1960s in Sweden (Öhrn, 2000) and somewhat later in the UK (Arnot, David and Weiner, 1999), women have increased their educational achievement levels and are now most competitive. Women have also increased their share within the attractive study programmes and in programmes previously dominated by men. With the exception of the field of technology, the attractive fields cannot be perceived as being male dominated any more. Some explanations for this change are that women are now economically independent. Within higher classes women are pushed by their families, just like upper-middle class men were before, to achieve an academic degree in order to reproduce the status of their family (Arnot, David and Weiner, 1999; Lucay and Reay, 2002). Moreover, there are structural circumstances (previously discussed) that pressure young women to achieve higher educational achievement levels compared to their male counterparts. The Master of Engineering programmes are still male dominated as it can be difficult for women to be students there.There are several ways of preventing women from making a gender atypical choice, from persuasion to the threat of sexual harassment (Bourdieu, 2001; Abrahamsson and Gunnarsson, 2002; SOU, 2004). Many women are aware of the gender and class division and do not choose educational alternatives from which they are locked out anyway (Bourdieu, 2001; Ayalon, 2003). In the case when a previously male dominated field becomes female dominated, its value diminishes. Binary logistic regression was once again used to better explain to the different outcomes among different groups of students. This time the four major attractive fields were in focus. There were substantial class differences in the enrolment rate, especially in the field of medicine (Tables 5 and 6). Generally the class difference was more pronounced among men than among women; however, there was an opposite tendency within technology. Gender and class intersect differently in this field. To be able to enter such a maledominated field, women are dependent on all kinds of support from their family and friends. It is likely that women from upper-middle class possess several kinds of capital, both economic and symbolic which compensates for their defective gender (Moi, 1991). The less apparent class differentiation among men might be due to the fact that © 2008 The Author. Journal compilation © 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

6.25 2.38

2.83 1.71 7.92

2.04 1.47 9.09 1.37

4.65 2.15

2.65 1.71 3.73

2

Natural sciences 1

3

1

2

Humanities

Dependent

1.76 1.41 4.14 1.43

3 6.75 2.77

3.21 2.05 6.34

2

Technology 1 2.29 1.74 7.20 1.37

3

Medicine

9.57 2.42

1 3.20 1.53 15.58

2

1.85 1.18 25.06 1.66

3


7.84 2.43

4.12 1.91 4.77

2.28 1.46 5.12 1.47

5.41 2.16

3.28 1.80 3.13

2

1

3

1

2

Natural sciences

Humanities

Dependent

2.00 1.46 3.11 1.37

3

6.24 2.53

1

3.30 2.00 6.72

2

Technology

2.30 1.72 6.86 1.30

3



Independent

10.95 2.43

1

Medicine

3.79 1.64 11.73

2

1.67 1.08 16.78 1.64

3

TABLE 6 Odds ratios men; entering an attractive programme within a certain field. Simple and extended models



Independent

TABLE 5 Odds ratios women; entering an attractive programme within a certain field. Simple and extended models

Differentiation within Higher Education 35

36


engineering leads to a profession pertaining to the intermediate and working class. Men become something ‘real’ after a degree in engineering (Hill, 1998). The number of SweSATs taken has previously been shown to further emphasise the gender and class differences; the same can be seen here. The results clearly demonstrate that it was the upper-middle class youth and particularly men who made use of the SweSAT to enter attractive programmes. The variables GPA and SweSAT explain more than 80 per cent of the class difference within the medical field, which happens because of the very high degree of competition for a place of study. It is only possible for those with the highest GPA and highest SweSAT scores to enter medical studies. The SweSAT was particularly favourable for upper-middle class men since this factor reduced the odds by 56 per cent within medicine (there was a reduction of the odds from 3.79 to 1.67, or 2.12, which is 56 per cent of 3.79). A large reduction in odds among men from the upper-middle class was also apparent within the field of humanities. Probably they need the SweSAT scores to become competitive to enrol in law or international business programme. Conclusion There have been several extensive changes within higher education in order to reduce the class differentiation within groups of students. Though it is difficult to make any clear comment on the broad question of whether or not an equalisation has taken place, a general conclusion in this study is that the class differences seem to be quite stable. That is also the conclusion from previous studies ( Erikson and Jonsson, 1996a; Jonsson, 2004) showing an increased class equalisation until 1970. Since then, however, it has remained fairly constant. The results here point to improvements concerning gender equality. A large proportion of women enter higher education, they also enter attractive programmes. However, looking at selection in a wider sense, it may be that the patterns of gender and class differentiation are continuing, but are assuming other forms (Delamont, 2001). The reason for this assumption is that higher education is changing; for example, grants have been cut down after women’s increased participation (Andres and Guppy, 1991). Also, there are signs that other standards for success within the labour market take over, while men’s educational success decreases (Kivinen and Ahola, 1999; Abrahamsson, 2002; Lahelma, 2005). © 2008 The Author. Journal compilation © 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.


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Note 1. In Sweden there is one national programme for those students who want to become physicians.The programme graduates earn a University Medical Degree. In order to get a licence, the student continues their studies after the degree and specialise.

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Erikson, R. and Goldthorpe, J. H. (1992) The Constant Flux. A Study of Class Mobility in Industrial Societies. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Erikson, R. and Jonsson, J. O. (1996a) The Swedish context: Educational Reform and Long-term Change in Educational Inequality. In R. Erikson and J. O. Jonsson (eds.), Can Education be Equalized? Boulder, CO: Westview Press, pp. 65–93. Erikson, R. and Jonsson, J. O. (eds.) (1996b) Can Education be Equalized? The Swedish Case in Comparative Perspective. Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press. FUR (Prerequisites, Education and Outcomes) (2005) An Attractiveness Index to Determine the Hierarchical Differentiation within Higher Education. http://www.ped.gu.se/projekt/ valuta/Attractiveness_index.pdf, last accessed 19 April 2007. Gustafsson, J.-E., Andersson, A. and Hansen, M. (2000) Prestationer och Prestationsskillnader i 1990-talets Skola [Achievements and Differences in Achievements in 1990s Education]. In J. Palme (ed.), SOU (No. 2000:39) Välfärd och skola [Welfare and Education]. Stockholm: Fritzes, pp. 135–211. Halsey, A. H. (1993) Trends in Access and Equity in Higher Education: Britain in International Perspective. Oxford Review of Education, 19 (2), pp. 129–140. Hill, M. (1998) Kompetent för ‘det nya arbetslivet’? [Competent for ‘the New Working Life’?] (No 126). Göteborg, Sweden: Acta Universitatis Gothoburgensis. Hodges Persell, C., Catsambis, S. and Cookson, P. W. Jr. (1992) Differential Asset Conversion: Class and Gendered Pathways to Selective Colleges. Sociology of Education, 65 (3), pp. 208–225. HSV (1996). Högskoleprovet genom elva forskares ögon [ The SweSAT through the Eyes of Eleven Researches]. Stockholm: National Agency for Higher Education. Jacobs, J. A. (1995) Gender and Academic Specialities: Trends among Recipients of College Degrees in the 1980s. Sociology of Education, 68 (2), pp. 81–98. Jacobs, J. A. (1999) Gender and the Stratification of Colleges. The Journal of Higher Education, 70 (2), pp. 161–187. Jonsson, J. O. (2004) Equality at a Halt? Social Mobility in Sweden, 1976–99. In R. Breen (ed.), Social Mobility in Europe. Oxford: Oxford University, pp. 225–250. Kivinen, O. and Ahola, S. (1999) Higher Education as Human Risk Capital – Reflections on Changing Labour Markets. Higher Education, 38 (2), pp. 191–208. Kivinen, O. and Rinne, R. (1991) Mapping the Field of Stratification in Higher Education: the Finnish Experience. Higher Education, 21 (4), pp. 521–549. Kivinen, O., Ahola, S. and Hedman, J. (2001) Expanding Education and Improving Odds? Participation in Higher Education in Finland in the 1980s and 1990s. Acta sociologica, 44 (2), pp. 171–181. Lahelma, E. (2005) School Grades and Other Resources: The ‘Failing Boys’ Discourse Revisited. Nordic Journal for Women’s Studies, 13 (2), pp. 78–89. Ljunglöf, T. (2004) Livslöner 2002 [Aggregate Lifetime Salary 2002]. from http://www.saco. se/upload/doc_archive/3313.pdf, last accessed 19 April 2007. Lucay, H. and Reay, D. (2002) Carrying the Beacon of Excellence: Social Class Differentiation and Anxiety at a Time of Transition. Journal of Educational Policy, 17 (3), pp. 321–336. Mickelson, R. A. (2003) Gender, Bourdieu, and the Anomaly of Women’s Achievement Redux. Sociology of Education, 76 (4), pp. 373–375. Miles, J. and Shevlin, M. (2001) Applying Regression & Correlation: A Guide for students and Researchers. London: SAGE. Moi, T. (1991) Appropriating Bourdieu: Feminist Theory and Pierre Bourdieu’s Sociology of Culture. New Literary History, 22 (4), pp. 1017–1049. Mäkitalo, Å. (1994) Non-comparability of Female and Male Admission Test Takers (No. 1994:06). Göteborg, Sweden: Department of Education and Educational Research. Öhrn, E. (2000) Changing Patterns? Reflections on Contemporary Swedish Research and Debate on Gender and Education. Nordic Journal for Women’s Studies, 8 (3), pp. 128–136. © 2008 The Author. Journal compilation © 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.


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Öhrn, E. (2002) Könsmönster i förändring? – en kunskapsöversikt om unga i skolan [Changing Gender Patterns?]. Stockholm: Statens Skolverk. Pedhazur, E. J. (1997) Multiple Regression in Behavioral Research: Explanation and Prediction, 3rd edn. Fort Worth, TX & London: Harcourt Brace. Pedhazur, E. J. and Pedhazur Schmelkin, L. (1991) Measurement, Design, and Analysis: An Integrated Approach. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Reay, D., Davies, J., David, M. and Ball, S. J. (2001) Choices of Degree or Degrees of Choice? Class, ‘Race’ and the Higher Education Choice Process. Sociology, 35 (4), pp. 855–874. Reuterberg, S.-E. (1997) Gender Differences on the Swedish Scholastic Aptitude Test (No. 1997:02). Göteborg, Sweden: Department of Education and Educational Research. Reuterberg, S.-E. (1998) On Differential Selection in the Swedish Scholastic Aptitude Test. Scandinavian Journal of Educational Research, 42 (1), pp. 81–97. SCB (2003a) Sysselsättning och arbetslöshet 1975–2002 [Employment and Unemployment 1975–2002]. Statistics Sweden. http://www.scb.se/statistik/am/am0401/_dokument/ gul2002.pdf, last accessed 19 April 2007. SCB (2003b) Universitet och högskolor. grundutbildning: sökande och antagna till universitet och högskolor höstterminen 2003 [Higher Education. Undergraduate Education: Applicants and Admitted to Higher Education for the Autumn Term 2003] (No. UF 46 SM 0301).Örebro, Sweden: Statistics Sweden. SCB (2004) På tal om kvinnor och män [Women and Men in Sweden]. Örebro, Sweden: Statistics Sweden. Shavit, Y., Arum, R. and Gamoran, A. (eds.) (2007) Stratification in Higher Education. A comparative study. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Skolverket (2004) Education Results 2004 – National Level. http://www.skolverket.se/ publikationer?id=1279, last accessed on 19 April 2007. SOU (1993) Ursprung och utbildning. Social snedrekrytering till högre studier. [Origin and Education. Social Selection to Higher Education] (No. 1993:85). Stockholm: Fritzes. SOU (2000) Välfärd och skola: antologi från kommittén välfärdsbokslut [Welfare and Education] (No. 2000:39). Stockholm: Fritzes. SOU (2004) Den könsuppdelade arbetsmarknaden [The Gender Segregated Labour Market] (No. 2004:43). Stockholm: Fritzes. Spjut, C. (2000) Vad är det som avgör din lön? [What DeterminesYour Salary?]. http://www. sjukhuslakaren.org/100/spjut.html, last accessed on 19 April 2007. Svensson, A. (1998) Hur lyckas eleverna i den nya gymnasieskolan? [How Do students Succeed in the New Upper Secondary School?] (No. 1998:07). Göteborg, Sweden: Department of Education. Tinklin, T., Croxford, L., Ducklin, A. and Frame, B. (2005) Gender and Attitudes to Work and Family Roles: the Views of Young People at the Millennium. Gender and Education, 17 (2), pp. 129–142. Willingham, W. W. and Cole, N. S. (1997) Gender and Fair Assessment. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum Associates.



On Process, Progress, Success and Methodology or the Unfolding of the Bologna Process as it Appears to Two Reasonably Benign Observers Guy Neave, Centro de Investigacão de Ensino Superior, (CIPES) Matosinhos, Portugal, and Alberto Amaral, Centro de Investigacão de Ensino Superior, (CIPES) Matosinhos, Portugal

Abstract This article examines the Bologna Process from two main perspectives: as a dynamic strategy as well as the unfolding of the methodology employed. It argues that the latter was largely determined by the former. Three phases of development are identified; the first two of which shows that the methodology was largely determined by the need to bestow credibility on the strategy. The third phase, introduced with the recent Ministerial meeting in London in May 2007 suggests that the boundless confidence in the progress achieved at system level has now given way to a new sobriety when attention to progress is translated to institutional level. It concludes that there are excellent grounds for rethinking the basic strategy behind the Bologna Process. ‘Tout va très bien, Madame la Marquise, Tout va très bien, tout va très bien. Pourtant, il faut, il faut que l’on vous dise, On déplore un tout petit rien: Un incident, une bêtise . . . ’1 – Ray Ventura et ses collégiens 1936.

Introduction On 17th and 18th of May 2007 those wedded to the advancement of the Bologna Process gathered in London for the fourth of the meetings of © 2008 The Authors. Journal compilation © 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford, OX4, 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA.

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Ministers and those responsible for higher education since the signing of the Bologna Declaration in June 1999. Amongst the items on the agenda, the so-called ‘external dimension’ of the process received much attention and could be said to mark the end of that self-absorption some observers outside Europe have associated with the process from the time of its launching (Marginson, 2005, p. 209–215) It is not wholly coincidental, however, that lowering the drawbridge of ‘Festung Europa’ should take place in London. In recent years, British higher education policy has been deeply engaged in developing its ‘world outreach’.Though this strategy does not necessarily conflict with a European commitment, the latter has tended to be looked upon with a goodly dose of detachment, born out of a particular form of British self-interest. For Britain, overseas commitment which is ‘the external dimension’ by another name (Neave, 2005 and 2006a, pp. 115–28) is driven by considerations – powerful, immediate and well grounded in the practice of British universities long before the Bologna Declaration was even signed, let alone advanced. For Britain’s universities, there are good reasons for seeing the overseas commitment as imperative. It is not in Europe where the principle of student fees has only recently, and reluctantly, been recognised, that the benefits of full cost fees are to be had. And the ability to recruit overseas students who bring full cost fees in their baggage is a priority that few British universities have chosen to ignore. Crucial issues The crucial issue that follows from tabling the external dimension is how far the different systems of higher education engaged in the Bologna Process are able to absorb this new ‘external’ commitment? How long will it take them to do so? Last but very far from least, whether indeed this external venture is uniformly suitable to all? A more pragmatic standpoint and more realistic, would treat the ‘external dimension’ with greater nuance and caution. A more nuanced view would recognise that while in theory, the external dimension applies to higher education’s version of Everyman, it would also note that in all likelihood, the dimension can be taken up and advanced successfully only by a few. Neither intention nor ambition (as other items already large in the Bologna agenda have shown all too often) necessarily means capacity (Neave, 2002, p. 9–18).The point made by the Commission that institutions of higher education did not observe the ‘proper application’ [sic] of the Diploma Supplement is a particularly cogent example (European Commission, 2007). © 2008 The Authors. Journal compilation © 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

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The Bologna Process has assumed a perspective, which now looks from inside out, is a significant point of departure in this everyday saga of university folk (Neave, 2006b, pp. 382–85). For that reason, the time is ripe to weigh up the process itself: how it has evolved, how its strategic thrust gathered precision, how its basic purpose underwent further elaboration as successive gatherings of Ministers piled Pelion upon Ossa2, adding extra objectives and additional elements to the original declaration of intent? What does the unfolding of the Bologna Process tell us about how its designers and adepts believed higher education might achieve the objectives, purpose and goals the Process laid upon the 37-member states that set their hand to the Bologna Declaration? As students of comparative policy in higher education, what may we learn from Bologna as the first example of a multination agreement, unprecedented in the number of nations subscribing to its principles and unprecedented in its bid to re-engineer the continent’s systems of higher education around a common profile? Sources In examining Bologna’s unfolding dynamic, this article draws mainly upon official documents put out by organisations and groups that act as ‘privileged interlocutors’ in the Process: the European Universities’ Association, the European Students International Bureau, the Bologna Follow Up Group, in addition to the documentation presented to, and the conclusions that emerge from, past Ministerial Meetings, issued by the host country. Finally, the documents issued by the Commission of the European Union as accounts of that body’s part in advancing the Bologna Process. Such sources are valuable pointers to the assumptions that different interests entertain about how the venture ought to advance. They yield valuable insights into the perceptions of progress, backsliding, new priorities or weaknesses that different interests have identified as the Bologna Process rolls on. Statements about where the Bologna Process ‘is at’ are often no less revealing about where particular interests think the Process ‘ought to be’. Successive Trend Reports, financed by the Commission of the European Union and carried out by the European Universities’ Association have both a manifest and a latent function. From the outset, their manifest function provides an interim account of what has been achieved between two Ministerial meetings. Their latent function is rather more interesting. It builds upon Bologna’s basic strategy and may even be considered as an integral part of it. Thus, the exercise of monitoring has © 2008 The Authors. Journal compilation © 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

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both a strategic and a political function. It is not simply a technical exercise bringing the good news to the Faithful, though one should not dismiss this role. The dual nature of this monitoring exercise calls for a closer look at the basic Bologna strategy.

Competitive emulation: a basic strategy Viewed as a strategy rather than as an enunciation of individual measures, which the Declaration set out in its six founding principles, Bologna rests on what may be described as a ‘strategy of competitive emulation’. ‘Competitive emulation’ is a gambit well tried in ‘leveraging reform’, employed as much by national authorities responsible for higher education as by intergovernmental agencies with a similar remit. ‘Competitive emulation’ displays a certain generic similarity to what was once known in the terrible and heroic days of constructing the Soviet Union as ‘Stakhanovism’ or, in its American variation, Taylorism. Stakhanovism, named after the dubious achievements of Aleksei Grigorievitch Stakhanov, was a form of ‘socialist competition’, first introduced into the Soviet Union during the Second Five Year Plan in 1935. Pioneered by Aleksei Grigorievitch in the Donetz Basin coalfield, it became an integral part of the socialist reconstruction of the Soviet economy, rationalised technological processes, improved work organisation and raised individual output sometimes spectacularly, but at no little social cost! Stakhanovism and Taylorism both involve the rationalisation of work the better to increase productivity. The ways ‘rationalisation’ is induced, are interesting. Competitive emulation involves suasion, conditionality, and incentives; physical in the case of Stakhanovism, moral in the case of Taylorism. Whether applied to the coal hewn per miner per shift in the Donetz basin or to aligning study programmes upon the ‘architecture’ of Bachelor and Masters degrees in the case of institutes of higher education, moral suasion, shaming, and the implicit threat that backsliding or non-compliance bring such pressure to bear that exceptional performance by the few becomes the expected norm for the many. Competitive emulation is an exceedingly versatile strategy. It may be applied at all levels of the administrative process, across different sectors in the nation’s provision of higher education, to the individual establishment, depending on the sophistication and adaptability of the national statistical office or the national organs of evaluation. © 2008 The Authors. Journal compilation © 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

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For this reason, competitive emulation is singularly powerful. It may be applied both domestically to the ‘home front’ and, at the same time, to the relationship between different national systems of higher education, often seen as symbols for national standing, efficiency, self-esteem, social responsibility, entrepreneurdom and other desirable traits in the national culture; whatever mobilising term in the current policy cycle enjoys fashionable concern amongst governments, stakeholders and consultants. Bologna’s evolution from a multinational declaration to a process put in place and made explicit the terms and the measures, fields of application and procedures, instrumentality and agencies. The Declaration evolves into The Process. It becomes the prime vehicle through which the strategy of competitive emulation is defined, applied and focused, where priorities are assigned, and their achievement assessed.

The Bologna Strategy: continuity and opportunity The strategy of competitive emulation works across multiple levels within and across nation state systems of higher education. It is dependent for both impact and effectiveness, however, on the agencies of control, verification and oversight present at nation state level. There is then a good case for seeing the Bologna Process as the direct heir to that thrust of reform which, in Western Europe, is identified with the rise of the evaluative state in the shape of agencies for quality assurance, for the systematic evaluation of higher education’s output and for fine tuning institutional behaviour through agencies of accreditation (SchwartzHahn and Westerheijden, 2004). If one accepts that amongst the priorities of Western European governments the introduction competitive emulation was the driving force for institutional adaptation, an Ersatz for an earlier mode of state control through legal enactment (Neave and van Vught, 1994), then arguably Bologna has advanced that same principle further, installing it as a major component in higher education’s particular version of the European dimension. Within this setting, the Bologna strategy refocuses a technique, already proven and tested within the nation state. Bologna, judged within this particular context, is redolent more of continuity than it is of change. A considerable body of evidence is now emerging from certain member states (France, Germany and Italy in particular) that suggests Bologna provided a heaven-sent opportunity to gain new purchase over domestic issues that, earlier, tended to be delicate in the extreme (Moscati, Boffo and Dubois, 2006; Witte, 2006; Musselin, forthcoming). © 2008 The Authors. Journal compilation © 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

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The hidden face of Bologna Bologna, then, has a second face, a species of policy ‘spin-off’ in parallel to the more visible primary task of constructing Europe ‘from above’. This ‘hidden face’ involves governments having recourse to the declaration to justify resuscitating items on the domestic agenda, items that formally involve only a tenuous connection with the Bologna strategy (e.g. for Italy, see Moscati, forthcoming). Bologna furnishes national authorities with a new justification to reopen issues previously impervious to the best-laid plans of ministry and civil servants. In Germany, for instance, the Bologna Process reopened the vexed question of cutting back on length of university first degrees; a topic that had tried the inventiveness and patience of the best minds in the German Rectors’ Conference and in the various Land ministries for the best part of a quarter century (Witte, 2006). The strategic setting It remains unclear how far governments signed Bologna in full and prior awareness of the advantages that could be reaped on the home front from such leverage. In turn, this raises the question whether Bologna was conceived by those signing it as the servant of the nation state or whether, on the contrary the nation state was to be construed as the trusty servant of Bologna. While the Bologna Process engaged higher education as a prime vehicle in the construction of Europe through the establishment of the European Higher Education Area and, later, the European Research Area, clearly it is not immune to the tensions that regularly and sorely tried the relationship between member states and supranational agencies throughout the 1990s (de Wit and Verhoeven, 2001). Here was a paradoxical situation indeed. One of the major considerations behind the Sorbonne Meeting the year before Bologna between the Ministers responsible for higher education in Britain, France, Germany and Italy was the need, if not to break the deadlock between two contrary visions of Europe, then at least to ensure some tangible progress by outflanking them. The two conflicting visions were whether or not European construction should rest on a federal or a unitary, base. To the ministers involved in the Sorbonne meeting, rapid progress was imperative to break political logjam that threatened to bring the construction of Europe to a shuddering halt. A clear demonstration was needed that progress in building Europe was possible in a domain where the tensions between a federal versus a unitary vision of Europe © 2008 The Authors. Journal compilation © 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

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were not so directly involved (Marçal Grillo, 2003). Such considerations in turn shaped two other dimensions, held essential to the Bologna strategy: its ‘broad front approach’ and its remarkable speed. The anatomy of a strategy Once the six principles in the Bologna Declaration are examined as the basis for developing a coherent strategy, the ‘broad front’ approach emerges strongly. The ‘broad front’ strategy covers two dimensions: an innovative element and an element of consolidation. The former turned around the ‘new architecture’ built around the bachelor and masters degrees, which the Berlin Ministerial meeting of 2003 extended to include doctoral level study. Also included in the ‘innovatory items’ was the principle of ‘readability’ of qualifications. These two components are innovative precisely because they can operate only on a transnational footing. They made little sense save when applied in a multi-system arena. By contrast, the element of consolidation built out from principles that already figured as matters of central concern and on-going reform in member states systems of higher education; to wit, transparency, employability, mobility and quality. Yet, the identifying characteristic of the Bologna strategy must surely be the unprecedented weight placed upon schedule and timing for completing the original six Bologna principles. This objective, however, is readily graspable provided it is not viewed within the context of the dynamics of institutional change and adaptability. For in truth, interpreted from this latter standpoint, it runs counter to all we know about the pace of institutional change and the complexities attendant upon implementation (Pressman and Wildavsky, 1984; Cerych and Sabatier, 1986; Neave, 2002). Precipitation explained If, on the one hand, this schedule is placed against the political context that led up to Bologna and on the other, one accepts that the Bologna strategy is grounded on the use of competitive emulation as the mobilising instrument, its rationale becomes evident. The need for expedition was dictated first, by the political objective originally raised at the Sorbonne Meeting of May 1998, namely, to give demonstrable proof of the European Union’s ability to progress in an area with immediate impact on, and importance perceived by, its citizens. Introducing a formal and public schedule for completing the reforms from the very outset was © 2008 The Authors. Journal compilation © 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

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indispensable if the strategy of competitive emulation was to have any consequence. Setting the year 2010 as date line by which the six fundamental principles were to be firmly embedded in the higher education systems of the signatory states served to keep pressure up and to sustain the reforming impulse.Without such leverage, there could be no laggards and, for that matter, still less praise for enthusiasm either!

Plans and action Neither the broad-front strategy nor the speed of advance were uncontested, as was who should determine the momentum of change. For Viviane Redding, Commissioner for Education and Youth, speaking at the Berlin Meeting of Ministers (Redding, 2003) and the ESIB 4 years later (ESIB 2007, p. 5), a broad front strategy was just that; all issues were to be tackled simultaneously. Seen retrospectively and reading between the lines of the various Trend Reports, it is clear that a broadfront strategy did not correspond, in the slightest, to the way member states set about the Bologna Process. On the contrary, the strategy of many signatory states was to tackle individual issues one after the other, using success in one issue as a breakthrough subsequently to tackle others. These two approaches are not necessarily incompatible, provided the central thrust of reform focuses on the overall strategy rather than its individual components. From a strategic standpoint, the six principles (three more had been added in 2001 at the Ministerial Meeting at Prague: lifelong learning, student participation and making the European higher education area attractive) were mutually supporting. Success in one served to strengthen the credibility of the general strategy and gave governments an enhanced leverage over the remainder. Nevertheless, the disagreement between proponents of a broad front strategy and the supporters of an initial penetration (by concentrating on one issue at a time to raise the profile, plausibility and credibility of the remainder) was serious particularly when the Bologna Process began to acquire its own momentum as it did after 2003. The risk lay not in the viability of the strategy; though this point has been made.

Complementary imaginings The risk lay at the European level and more particularly in the perception such a tactic of proceeding ‘par petits paquets’ had upon the overall strategy itself. Seen from this angle, the Bologna strategy was directly © 2008 The Authors. Journal compilation © 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

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subordinated to the capacities and will of individual member states. The risk in ‘proceeding by open order’ was that it could be interpreted at a European level as an inability, or worse still reluctance, to engage upon a strategy the coherence of which ought to be contested by none. Such misgivings were themselves an error for they confused the image such a perception conveyed of the strategy with the substance of the strategy itself. In effect, the Bologna strategy of competitive emulation relies as much upon the image conveyed of advancing achievement and achievement advanced as it does on the often-meagre reality of what indeed has been achieved. From the very first, the image of success rapidly gained was an integral part of Bologna’s basic strategy. Thus, tension between the supporters of a broad-front strategy and those pragmatists who backed a more selective and focused operational agenda the better to advance the Bologna strategy in depth, scornfully described in certain documents as the ‘à la carte’ approach to the Bologna strategy, was no idle matter. To move forward rapidly and successfully, the Bologna strategy needed to demonstrate as much to member states as to the higher education and scholarly communities generally, that it had moved forward rapidly and successfully. Yet the evidence presented to support advance was far from being solid. Here the work of the Bologna Follow Up Group’s Stocktaking Exercise repays closer scrutiny. In support of the general proposition ‘the Bologna Process is working’ (Bologna Follow Up Group, 2005 p. 26), the proportion of student enrolment in the two-cycle system was invoked: In 17 countries, 81–100 per cent of students are enrolled in the two-cycle system in 2005, in six countries 51–80 per cent and 10 countries 1–24 per cent. In just three countries, no students are enrolled in the two-cycle system in 2005. (Bologna Follow Up Group, 2005, p. 34)

These seemingly precise figures assumed a slightly battered appearance in the paragraph that followed; ‘It should be noted that these figures are broad estimates based on the limited information that was available to the National Reports and the Eurydice summaries’ (Bologna Follow Up Group, 2005, p. 35). Those concerned with methodological nicety would certainly pose the question, ‘How broad?’ assuming, of course, all were agreed on what constitutes broadness. Others might worry about the quality of the sources, quite apart from the uniform accuracy of the summaries. This is an excellent illustration of the basic weaknesses of the strategy, namely that the image manufactured often bore a tenuous connection © 2008 The Authors. Journal compilation © 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

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with what policy analysts are wont to call ‘grounded reality’ or, in this particular instance, reality pre-processed by the various authors of the national reports and summaries. Advance, even on tenuous evidence, was crucial because the leverage governments could bring to bear on their own higher education systems, in turn, depended closely and intimately on the Bologna Process being seen to advance rapidly and successfully. Hence, the price of credibility and thus the leverage governments could exert from the outset was inseparable from advance demonstrated without peradventure. The Bologna strategy was hostage to the image it set out to create for itself just as it was victim of the image created to justify it.

The sweet smell of success Succinctly stated, the basic Bologna strategy of competitive emulation takes on plausibility only when ‘successful’. Hence, demonstrating success was not simply a matter of showing how far strategic activities derived from the nine principles had been taken up, engaged upon, advanced and achieved. In the initial phrase up to 2003, one of the more interesting features held up as success was the capacity of member states to enact the principles they had agreed upon. Thus for instance as evidence for progress, the Trends Report of 2003 noted that 80 per cent of the states signatory to the Bologna Declaration ‘have the legal possibility to offer the two-tier structures or are introducing these’ (Reichert and Tauch, 2003, pp. 7; our italics). Two points arise here. The first has to do with the collapsing together of what are two clearly separate categories: those States that have introduced legislation and those that are introducing it. Had the difference between achievement and intention been recognised, the gratifying statistic of 80 per cent would certainly have been more modest. The second point relates to the notorious weakness of legislation as a pointer to developments at institutional level. In many countries, amongst which France, Spain, Italy and Portugal, it is not the passing of a law that spurs action on. It is the ‘decret d’application’, or its equivalent. Without it, laws may indeed be passed – directly to the archives and into oblivion.The passing of legislation may tell us something about intention or even commitment as a minimum condition. What it does not tell us is the extent of that commitment. Commitment is largely a function of the weight attached to the various procedures and the seriousness in which the passing of laws is regarded in a particular political system. © 2008 The Authors. Journal compilation © 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

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Not surprisingly, though later, the use of legislative capacity to illustrate progress was subject to second thoughts (Reichert and Tauch, 2005, Executive Summary, para. 10). Methodology and the quest for success The quest for evidence to sustain success is shaped by political priority. From the standpoint of scholars and analysts of higher education, it stands as a methodological affair of the utmost nicety, if only to see how methodology evolved along with strategy. Only in the Fifth Trend Report of 2007 did the importance of methodology receive the slightest acknowledgement when the combining of one study of both qualitative and quantitative techniques was announced to a wondering world (Purser and Crosier, 2007). In usual circumstances, quibbling over methodology is one of the few pleasures academia grants the pedantic. However, since the quest for demonstrable success in the Bologna Process intertwined image and strategy, it follows that methodology was also shaped by the same considerations. Methodological niceties The methodology employed in quasi-official documentation that accompanies the Bologna Process falls into three clear chronological periods, from 1999 to 2003, from 2003 to 2007 and from 2007 onwards. During the first phase, the methodology developed is best described as ‘hortatory’ on the one hand or ‘contextualising the Bologna Declaration within the then current framework of higher education policy’ on the other. Both activities entailed a ‘pump priming exercise’, the purpose of which was to transfer attention from the six individual principles and the policies, each of them separately engaged at nation state level, onto the Bologna Process as the common vehicle for their future advance at European level. Particularly revealing in this tactic of ‘credibility building’ were the conclusions reached in Trends II (Haug and Tauch, 2001, pp. 1, italics added): The Bologna Declaration is on all agendas . . . It is mostly seen as confirming national priorities: this is the process’ biggest strength, i.e. it ‘crystallises’ major trends and reveals that issues and solutions have a European dimension . . . The process is not (or no longer) seen as an intrusion, but as a source of information on the most suitable way (our italics) forward for Europe.

Leverage over individual items in a strategy of reform is largely a function of the ability to persuade those about to have reform done to © 2008 The Authors. Journal compilation © 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

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them that wide consensus already exists in favour of those measures the reforming wish to advance. It is not surprising that Trends II discovered a pleasing agreement around the core items of the Declaration: ‘unanimous support to [sic] the promotion of the mobility of students’; increased awareness ‘that employability is an issue all over Europe’; ‘most countries now seem to understand “competitiveness” in a positive sense and to endorse the need for their higher education systems to be “attractive” ’. On so wide ranging a consensus, individual signatory states could claim the moral leverage required to use Bologna as an additional blessing for policies many had in hand before Bologna. These were powerful claims and especially so in such sensitive areas as ‘competitiveness’ and ‘employability’, which represented a fundamental departure from earlier notions that turned around employment, and which stood as an explicit neoliberal reinterpretation of higher education’s purpose. Such findings were an integral part of a manufactured consensus without which the Bologna strategy risked progressing less briskly. To whom were the advantages of competitiveness revealed? The answer is as astounding as the technical and ethical implications that trail in its wake. The prime interlocutors and purveyors of information were ‘mainly based on information provided by the Ministers of Higher Education and the Rectors’ Conferences’ (Reichert and Tauch, 2003, pp. 2). From a strictly methodological perspective, canvassing the opinions of precisely those who had been instrumental in the very launching of the Bologna Process is unlikely to reveal second thoughts so soon after their first cogitations had been publicly consecrated in the form of a declaration. Which leads one to suggest that the purpose of the Trend Reports that appeared during the first phase of the Bologna Process had nothing whatsoever to do with either progress or achievement so much as justifying and creating plausibility for a strategy that the very same interests and agencies had agreed amongst themselves between 2–4 years earlier to develop. Here is a rare example of ‘a self-justifying ordinance’. On such a methodology was the Bologna Declaration transformed into the Bologna Process. No one can fail to be a little bemused by the sheer surrealism of the notion that either ministers or rectors would fail to confirm those self-same priorities they had themselves so recently agreed on. The first phase and Dr Pangloss Thus, the first phase of the Bologna strategy, saw investigation engaged in what appears akin to a self-fulfilling prophecy in which the null © 2008 The Authors. Journal compilation © 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

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hypothesis (that no advance has been made) shone largely by its absence. Indeed, if one pores closely over the first two Trend Reports, success was never in question. Rather, the central issue was simply the degrees of success, of acceptability and of enlightenment that remained to be ascertained and to be proved ‘All is for the best in the best of all possible worlds’. The second phase: ‘take up’ and the institutional dimension The second phase in Bologna’s methodological saga covers the 4 years from 2003; from Berlin onwards. It marked developments in two domains: the admission of interests and constituencies other than governments, ministers and rectors, for example, employers and students (brought in under the Prague Ministerial Meeting of 2001); and finally, the rectification of that most bizarre of all omissions, academia itself, which eventually took place in 2005 at the Bergen Ministerial Meeting, 6 years after the launching of the Declaration. The second development saw the focus of attention shift from the acceptability of Bologna within the world of politics to the take-up within the groves of academia of the operational consequences that flowed from the nine Bologna principles. The transfer of the centre of gravity from the political domain to the institutional dimension, from the pays politique to the pays reel, reflected a parallel realignment in methodology and in the Bologna strategy itself. The quest for leverage moved on from the issue of political acceptability of the Bologna principles to how far the operational consequences of those principles had penetrated to the individual university. The ‘closed cycle’ style of eliciting opinion, which characterised the first 4 years of the Trends Reports, was replaced by a series of 62 site visits (Reichert and Tauch, 2005). Consensus building was replaced by a derivative form of impact study (Neave, forthcoming) designed with two ends in mind: first, to ascertain the degree of ‘institutional take-up’ and thus how far the Bologna Process itself was ‘on course’; and second, by demonstrating success in take-up, to extend leverage and bring competitive emulation to bear on the institutional level. Weaknesses The tasks addressed in the second phase were not made easier by the impression of rapidity and success that flourished during the first phase which had shaped expectations in the political domain. From a methodological standpoint, two very evident weaknesses stood out; the first © 2008 The Authors. Journal compilation © 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

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was the choice of ‘soft’ items as proof of progress. Amongst them figured the attitudes of different interests; leadership and the academic estate as individuals. The second entailed an elastic understanding of precisely what was involved in institutional ‘take up’. Using attitudes to demonstrate progress is a mixed blessing. One can never be sure whether attitudes are enduring, passing or merely formed at the moment an individual is put to the question. Similarly, the issue of ‘take up’, which is often the start of ‘a highly complex cultural and social transformation that . . . set(s) off a chain of developments with their own dynamics in different contexts’ (Reichert and Tauch, 2005, Executive Summary, para. 5, p. 1) rather than its happy ending. Take up, however, is a minimal definition that ends only when the new practice is firmly embedded in the institution. Four separate stages may be identified under the general rubric of implementation: ‘take up’ by the institution, internal negotiation, execution and finally, embedding. Following the classic studies of implementation in higher education (Pressman and Wildavsky, 1984; Cerych and Sabatier, 1986), a large number of veto points are present.They often ensure that take up, though a form of progress when set against ‘no take up’, can presume completion and still take success less for granted, above all, when both are conditioned by an unyielding schedule. During Bologna’s second phase, by moving into the area of institutional take up, strategy faced a vastly more complex task; namely how to authenticate what had been achieved, while showing ‘that the Bologna Process is working. Almost all participating countries have embarked on the reform process along the lines articulated by Ministers in Bologna in 1999’ (Bologna Follow Up Group, 2005, pp. 26). In effect, the strategy and those dedicated to driving it forward found themselves impaled on the horns of a most unpleasant technical dilemma, which turned around the question of aggregation versus plausibility. Problems One of the problems the student of higher education often faces is that developments perceived tend to be a function of the level of analysis. Advance, progress or ‘take up’ at the level of whole national systems, often masks spectacular deviance when re-examined at lower levels – at the regional level and most assuredly so at the level of the individual establishment. At a high level of aggregation, what may cause selfcongratulation often leads to the wringing of hands once attention penetrates below those heights (Neave, 1996, p. 26–41).What is presented as © 2008 The Authors. Journal compilation © 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

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plausible at system level does not always command the same credibility once focus shifts. For a state to embark on a new architecture of studies is very far from having every single university within the self same nation in a condition of similar beatitude. When the level of analysis moves below the nation level, earlier claims to plausibility are often subject to severe strain, unless one re-aggregates the earlier results in the light of the information provided from the lower level. Plausibility claimed on the earlier basis of the higher level of aggregation often is compromised by the results obtained from disagregation. Disagregation raises a very ancient issue; namely, whether earlier results were the outcome of choosing criteria less essential than nominal or criteria chosen simply because they fitted the image one sought to convey. Faulty strategy In all fairness, however, the Bologna strategy could not avoid the institutional level. It faced a task that in all logic ought to have been undertaken as a preliminary to the reforming impulse rather than as a consequence of it. For in seeking to verify take up, for example, of the new architecture of studies, of credit transfer, the use of the diploma supplement, strategic outcomes no longer rested solely on ministerial will.They rested on the capacity of the individual institution. This ‘transfer’ in turn raises the issue of what conditions present at institutional level serve to expedite ‘take up’ in the first place and, in the second, optimise the attendant stages of negotiation, implementation and embedding. Thus, those entrusted with tracing the strategy’s application were rapidly obliged to consider other factors and contingencies. How, for instance, could the new demands Bologna entailed, be accommodated within existing institutional constraints upon budget, teaching load, student contact hours and this, in establishments already groaning under the routine duties made heavier as a result of a decade of unrelenting reform at national level, in addition to so radical and additional an overhaul the Bologna strategy demanded (Veiga, Rosa and Amaral, 2006)? The Bologna strategy suffers from a major weakness in both conception and in execution. Apologists will certainly point out that the sense of urgency, which hung over the birth of the Declaration, did not permit such luxuries as prior assessment of the capacity of the universities in Europe to adapt. To the ‘pays politique’, speed was of the essence. Yet, from the standpoint of shaping of strategy, there is nothing more risky than committing oneself to a course of action without knowing whether © 2008 The Authors. Journal compilation © 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

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or not (or, which is worse, taking for granted that) the prime vehicle for the strategy’s successful outcome possesses the capacity, let alone the will, to carry the strategy out. The Bologna strategy was launched with very little, if any, prior attention paid to the consequences that more than a decade of reform at nation state level had already wrought upon the capacity of universities and institutions of higher education to assimilate the additional demands the strategy imposed. Viewed from this perspective, though the Bologna process crowned more than a decade of reform, it also added to the ongoing and spreading burden higher education struggled to master. The third stage: un incident, une bêtise . . . The London Ministerial Meeting of May 2007 marks the third stage in the methodological evolution of the Bologna strategy, a feature the writers of the Fifth Trends Report were at pains to emphasise. Why they made this point at all is an interesting issue in itself. To the sceptical and scholarship, in contrast to politics, involves the systematic suspension of belief, the sudden engouement for methodological nicety would have been a non-issue, unless one had relied on hearsay, on unsystematic impressions, or had been economical with rigour and objectivity during the earlier stages in tracking the Bologna adventure.There are, however, two further complicating factors: first, that findings, which emerged from analysis at a lower level of disagregation, undermined the plausibility of claims made earlier. They weakened the basis on which competitive emulation rested. Since competitive emulation was the heart of the Bologna Strategy, the credibility of the latter was also at stake. The second possibility is the type of information gathered to ascertain progress became increasingly dysfunctional. In the quest for consensus and through consensus, demonstrable progress, little attention was paid to views that questioned the ways to achieve the Bologna objectives. The outward harmony of discussion was thus preserved at the price of eliminating disagreement from the record. The debate over accreditation at the Salamanca Convention of 2001 is a good illustration. It raised fundamental issues about the strategic consequences for higher education in Europe of such a procedure and generated no little dissent. To deduce this from the official record of that occasion would demand insight, imagination and sensitivity of a very high degree indeed. . . . representatives of higher education institutions, as well as student organizations, quality assurance agencies, national higher education authorities © 2008 The Authors. Journal compilation © 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

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Higher Education Quarterly and intergovernmental bodies discussed accreditation as a possible option for higher education in Europe, particularly as a contribution to the completion of the European higher education area called for in the Bologna Declaration. (Message from the Salamanca convention, 29–30 March 2001).

By excising dissent, the better to sustain the credibility of progress and to uphold competitive emulation, which was dependent on, and the instrument of, progress, the Bologna strategy created its own obscurities. The account no longer provided a credible leverage. No longer did it convey a narrative that reflected the conditions under which institutions laboured to advance the Bologna strategy. ‘Trop de succès, tue le succès’ (too much success kills success off). The methodological opening of Pandora’s Box The much-heralded refinement of methodology announced in the Fifth Trend Report broke with the way the Bologna strategy was perceived by those advancing it. By moving into the institutional level, the issue was solidly joined as to whether or not the Bologna strategy was easily reconcilable with academia’s daily lot. Or, indeed whether or not the interpretation that national governments placed on Bologna and the opportunities it presented for the furtherance of national policy were reconcilable. In Germany, Austria and Italy for example, one of the benefits governments hoped would be bestowed on them was considerable savings in cost as study duration was reduced (Fulton, Amaral and Veiga, 2004). Bologna resuscitated a basic issue all-too-long delayed; namely, the question of ways, means and very particularly, the sheer cost involved, both human and financial. Also posed was whether or not governments ought now to consider ‘targeted incentives’ for universities to move forward rapidly in fulfilling Bologna’s basic terms: comparable qualifications, curricular overhaul and mobility for staff, students and researchers (European Commission, 2007, pp. 6). The Commission’s suggestion of ‘targeted incentives’ should not be passed over lightly. Irrespective of whether or not governments take the point up, the proposal is interesting for the implications it raises in connection with the Bologna strategy itself. The implication is that competitive emulation has reached its limits. It remains to be seen whether the Bologna stakes are to be urged on by that instrumentality that is higher education’s equivalent of whip and spurs; such as performance-related funding which is another way of describing targeted incentives. Some member states have already introduced incentive-based funding: certain Autonomous Communities in Spain for example © 2008 The Authors. Journal compilation © 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

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(Canarian Government Council for Education Culture and Sports, 1996) or, like Portugal, are actively considering it. The major change in the third stage of the Bologna strategy was not confined to an enhanced technical sophistication, which added seven focus groups to the 15 site visits and the 900 odd questionnaires sent out to institutions (Purser and Crosier, 2007). It also injected an evident evaluative (or judgmental) element, far beyond the established binary method of counting the number of institutions that had or had not ‘done those things that ought to be done’. This self-critical element, nuanced though it, sets the Fifth Trends Report aside from its predecessors. Regrettably the report did not penetrate deeper into examining those procedures underlying the rise in the proportion of higher education institutions with all three cycles ‘in place’ from 53 per cent in 2003 to 82 per cent in 2007 (Purser and Crosier, 2007, slide 6).Yet by no means, all establishments of higher education in Europe teach up to the doctorate. It is then rather important to know what proportion of institutions in Europe do officially pursue work up to this level and, rather more to the point, that the 900 odd included in the survey are representative of this obdurately Humboldtian world. Virtue resuscitated The virtue of the Fifth Trends Report lay in the hesitant but nevertheless rewarding first steps beyond the purely quantitative and the nominal. In place of an earlier unanimity amongst rectors about the significance of graduate employability (Reichert and Tauch, 2003, pp. 5), ‘trends reveal that there is still much to be done to translate this priority into institutional practice’ (Purser and Crosier, 2007, p. 2). A further example, illustrating how earlier plausibility became questionable with changes in the level of analysis, emerges from successive accounts of the development of the European Credit Transfer Scheme (ECTS). Thus, in 2003, according to Trends III, two thirds of higher education institutions used ECTS for credit transfer, 15 per cent used a different system and three quarters of those contacted claimed to have introduced a credit accumulation system (Reichert and Tauch, 2003, pp. 10). Introduction is one thing, correct usage another. Thus, 4 years on, ‘There remains much work to be done to ensure [HEIs] use the Diploma Supplement correctly. Incorrect or superficial use of ECTS is currently still widespread. Such usage hinders the restructuring of curricula and the development of flexible learning paths for students’ (Purser and Crosier, 2007 p. 2). © 2008 The Authors. Journal compilation © 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

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The end of instant success and the rise of a new sobriety? The striking feature of the Bologna strategy in its third stage is the recognition that while instant success may encourage effort, it is a gambit limited in usefulness and applicability. As an assessment of policy, the latest report, unlike its predecessors, no longer resembles an unwitting pastiche of that racy French song from the 1930s: ‘Tout va très bien, Madame la Marquise’. Readiness to associate success with the most tenuous of evidence yields to a cautious hesitancy on the one hand, and to greater concern with the conditional nature of current developments, on the other. The institutional level creates its own sobriety, just as it creates its own exigencies. Once the Bologna strategy permeates to the institutional level, the task of gauging progress takes on a different complexity. Such complexity can no longer be served by recourse to facile legislative and legalistic criteria and still less by plotting the numbers of students enrolled on courses nominally associated with the ‘new architecture’. It is, after all, the easiest thing in the world to change the nameplate on the departmental door, or to re-label the titles of programmes, units and courses while preserving the contents as ever they were, though both can easily be seen as institutional ‘take up’. Henceforth, the challenge the Bologna strategy faces is very similar to that which earlier and at nation state level, accompanied the rise of the evaluative state. That is to say, whether ‘take up’ is nominal – a disguised tokenism – or essential and fully grounded in institutional reality (Neave 1998, 2006c; Huitema, Jeliazkova and Westerheijden, 2002). That a self-induced euphoria yields ground before a new sobriety will be as welcome to the scholarly community as it will be on its own account. However, the new sobriety also suggests that Bologna’s earlier battle honours are beginning to look a little tattered. Take for instance, the new degree structures. According to the Fifth Trends Report ‘changes in degree structures so far seem only to have had only a marginal effect . . . many national funding systems currently act as a disincentive to mobility, rewarding institutions that retain students, but not providing incentives to mobility’ (Purser and Crosier, 2007, para 8, p. 4). Nor is this the only cause for concern. Neither governments nor institutions, the report remarks, appear to have the ability ‘to communicate the results and implications of the structural and curricular reforms which have arisen from the Bologna Process . . . There is . . . a danger that the new degrees, particularly at the first cycle, will be misunderstood or mistrusted within the labour market’ (Purser and Crosier, 2007, para. 12, © 2008 The Authors. Journal compilation © 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

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p. 5). Earlier Italian experience echoed this warning (Boffo, 2004, p. 371–381). The conditions of consolidation Clearly the Bologna strategy requires radical rethinking for the selfevident reason that a strategy designed to mobilise can only, with very great difficulty if at all, be bent to another strategic purpose, such as addressing the task that Europe’s universities and colleges are now engaged upon.This entails ascertaining, consolidating and communicating internal reform in a way that has satisfying meaning as much for students and their parents as it does for those who, in lofty places, set the framework of that strategy. The strategy of generating plausible results has served its time. What matters now is a strategy that sets about improving and redesigning the quality of the information purveyed, (Department for Education and Skills, 2007, p. 10) its clarity and eliminating avoidable ambiguity. Conclusion This article has examined the Bologna Process as the unfolding of an overall strategy and from the evolution in the methodology employed. The latter, it was argued, was largely determined by the former. Three phases in the development of methodology were identified, the first two showed a close interplay between strategy and methodology. This interplay had methodology acting to bestow credibility on the strategy; to demonstrate both its success, its impact and thus rapidly to substantiate consensus; and to plot both its geographical extent and its penetration into the national fabric of higher education. The quest for demonstrable success was as important to the signatory states as it was for the viability of the strategy itself. It afforded an additional and important leverage over internal reform at nation state level while uniting both national effort and reinforcing the European dimension around policy, grounded in the concept of competitive emulation that provided a central driving force to the overall Bologna Strategy. An examination of the third phase in the methodological and strategic unfolding of the Bologna Process reveals a situation where increasing concern at progress on the institutional level has ousted the boundless confidence that earlier accompanied the registration of consensus and the response it generated at the level of individual higher education systems. In short, the methodological complexity in keeping track of the © 2008 The Authors. Journal compilation © 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

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Bologna Process at institutional level has ushered in a new prudence in interpreting progress achieved. By acknowledging this, the third stage also recognises the fundamental difference between ‘taking up’ the principles set out in the Bologna Process and their completion. The main question the change in methodology poses, so evident in the third stage, is whether competitive emulation, the heart of the Bologna strategy during the first two phases, is sufficient to ensure the attainment of that basic strategic objective, which accompanied the Bologna Process from the outset; namely, completing the embedding of the new degree structure and its instruments of qualification by the year 2010. Finally, if adequate and proper account is to be taken of Bologna’s dynamic within the universities in Europe, the basic strategy itself needs to be rethought. Notes 1. ‘Things are just fine, Madame la Marquise, As fine as they could be. Still, there’s something that you’d best know. A minor thing, a bit of bother . . . ’ 2. Editor’s note: for those unaware of this classical allusion that has been round for about 2000 years, the authors indicate that it means piling one thing on another to reach grotesque heights. Mout Pelion and Mount Ossa are Greek prominences but still the highest in the Peleponese.

References Boffo, S. (2004) Universities and Marketing Mass Communication in Italy. Higher Education Policy, 17 (4, December), pp. 371–381. Bologna Follow Up Group (2005) Stocktaking Exercise. Bruxelles: Universite Libre de Bruxelles. Canarian Government Council for Education Culture and Sports (1996) Programme Contract as provided for under the 6/1995 Territorial Act, 1996–1998. Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, (English translation) February 1996. Cerych, L. and Sabatier, P. (1986) Great Expectations: Implementing Reform in Europe’s Higher Education. Stoke-on-Trent, UK: Trentham Books. Department of Education and Skills (2007) Bergen to London; Secretariat Report on the Bologna Work Programme 2005–2007. London: Department of Education and Skills, p. 10. European Commission (2007) Towards the European Higher Education Area: Responding to Challenges in a Globalized World. Conference of European Higher Education Ministers, Contribution of the European Commission, Bruxelles. May 17–18, 2007. European Students International Bureau (ESIB) (2007) Bologna with Student Eyes. Executive Summary. Press Release. Fulton, O., Amaral, A. and Veiga, A. (2004). Report of Site Visits of an External Monitoring Team to the University Ca’ Foscari (Venice) and the University of Urbino. Monitoring the Harmonisation Process Of Tertiary Education Systems in Some Countries of the European Union (follow up of the Bologna and Prague Conferences) with Specific Reference to the Italian Reform. Bruxelles/Geneva: European Universities Association. © 2008 The Authors. Journal compilation © 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

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Haug, G. and Tauch, C. (2001) Towards the European Higher Education Area: Survey of the Main Reforms from Bologna to Prague. Conférence des Recteurs Européens, Geneva. Huitema, D., Jeliazkova, M. and Westerheijden, D. (2002) On Phases, Levels and Circles in Policy Development: the Cases of Higher Education and Environmental Quality Assurance. Higher Education Policy, 14, pp. 197–215. Marçal Grillo, E. (2003) European Higher Education Society.” Tertiary Education and Management, 8 (3), pp. 3–11. Marginson, S. (2005) Cities of Angels and the Barbarians at the Gates. In J. Enders, J. File, J. Huisman and D. Westerheijden (eds.), The European Higher Education and Research Landscape 2020. Brno, Czech Republic: Vuilin Publishers, pp. 209–215. Moscati, R. (Forthcoming) The Implementation of the Bologna Process in Italy. In A. Amaral, P. Maassen, C. Musselin, and G. Neave, (eds.), Bologna, Universities and Bureaucrats. Dordrecht: Kluwer. Moscati, R., Boffo, S. and Dubois, P. (2006) Changing Governance in France and Italy. Presentation to the 28th EAIR Conference, August 30–September 1 2006, Rome. Musselin, C. (Forthcoming) The Side-effects of the Bologna Process on Institutional Settings: the Case of France. In A. Amaral, P. Maassen, C. Musselin and G. Neave (eds.), Bologna, Universities and Bureaucrats. Dordrecht: Kluwer. Neave, G. (1996) Homogenization, Integration and Convergence: the Cheshire Cats of Higher Education Analysis. In L. Meek, L. Goedegebuure, O. Kivinen and R. Rinne (eds.), The Mockers and Mocked: Comparative Perspectives on Differentiation, Convergence and Diversity In Higher Education. Oxford: Pergamon, pp. 26–41. Neave, G. (1998) The Evaluative State Reconsidered. European Journal of Education, 33 (3, September), pp. 265–284. Neave, G. (2002) Vale Tudo – ou como a adaptação das universidades à integração europeia encerra contradiçãoes afinal inspiradoras. Boletim Universidade do Porto, (35, Maío), pp. 9–18. Neave, G. (2005) Times, Measures and the Man: the Future of British Higher Education treated historically and comparatively. Higher Education Quarterly, 60 (2, April), pp. 115–128. Neave, G. (2006a) Times, Measures and the Man: the Future of British Higher Education treated historically and comparatively. Higher Education Quarterly, 60 (2, April), pp. 115–128. Neave, G. (2006b) Social Dimension och Social Sammanhallning i Bologna processen: Eller, att Forlika Adam Smith med Thomas Hobbes. In K. Blückert and E. Österberg (eds.), Gränslöst i Sverige och i Världen. Stockholm: Natur och Kultur, pp. 382– 403. Neave, G. (2006c) A Privatizaçao da Educaçao Superior e a Dinâmic do Estado Avaliador. Conferência Magna do 8 Fòrum Nacional; Ensino Superior Particular Brasileiro, October 19–21 2006, World Trade Centre, Sao Paulo, Brazil. 23 pp. Neave, G. (Forthcoming) The Bologna Process as Omega or Alpha. Or, On Interpreting History and Context as Inputs to Bologna, Prague, Berlin and Beyond. In A. Amaral, P. Maassen, C. Musselin and G. Neave (eds.), Bologna, Universities and Bureaucrats. Kluwer: Dordrecht. Neave, G. and van Vught, F. (1994) Prometeo Encadenado: Estado y Educación Superior en Europa. Barcelona: Gedisa, pp. 377–399. Pressman, J. L. and Wildavsky, A. B. (1984) Implementation: How Great Expectations in Washington Are dashed in Oakland: or,Why it’s Amazing that Federal ProgramsWork at all, this being A saga of the Economic Development Administration as Told by Two Sympathetic Observers who Seek to Build Morals on a Foundation of Ruined Hopes, 3rd edn. Berkeley: University of California Press. Purser, L. and Crosier, D. (2007) Trends V: Key Messages. 4th Convention of European Higher Education Institutions, March 2007, Lisbon (power point presentation). © 2008 The Authors. Journal compilation © 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

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Redding, V. (2003) ‘Address to the Berlin Meeting of Ministers of Higher Education, September 17–19th 2003’ quoted in Tomusk, Voldemar (2004) ‘Three Bolognas and a pizza pie: notes on the institutionalisation of the European Higher Education System’. International Studies in the Sociology of Education, 14 (1), pp. 75–96. Reichert, S. and Tauch, C. (2003) Trends 2003: Progress Towards the European Higher Education Area, (summary). Bruxelles/Geneva: EUA. Reichert, S. and Tauch, C. (2005) Trends IV. European Universities implementing Bologna. Bruxelles: European Universities’ Association/ Socrates. Schwartz-Hahn, S. and Westerheijden, D. (2004) Accreditation and Evaluation in the European Higher Education Area. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers. Veiga, A., Rosa, M. J. and Amaral, A. (2006) The Internationalisation of Portuguese Higher Education: How are Higher Education Institutions . . . Higher Education Management, 18 (2), pp. 113–128. de Wit, K. and Verhoeven, J. (2001) Higher Education Policy of the European Union: with or without the Member States. In J. Huisman, P. Maassen and G. Neave (eds.), Higher Education and the Nation State: the international dimension of Higher Education. Oxford: Elsevier Science, pp. 175–232. Witte, J. (2006) Change of Degrees and Degrees of Change: Comparing Adaptations of European Higher Education Systems in the Context of the Bologna Process. Enschede: CHEPS.



Modelling University Governance Leon Trakman, University of New South Wales

Abstract Twentieth century governance models used in public universities are subject to increasing doubt across the English-speaking world. Governments question if public universities are being efficiently governed; if their boards of trustees are adequately fulfilling their trust obligations towards multiple stakeholders; and if collegial models of governance are working in increasingly complex educational environments. With declining public funding for tertiary education, growing international competition among institutions of higher learning in our information age and worrisome evidence of dysfunctional governance, critics question if established governance structures are able to meet these and other challenges. Some insist that members of faculty are most suited to govern public universities because they appreciate the vision and mission of the university. Others demand that boards of governors be skilled in financial matters and drawn primarily from corporate life.Yet others call for governance based on trust and confidence between those who govern and those who are governed. The article evaluates competing trends in models of university governance in the United Kingdom, the British Commonwealth and the United States. Arguing against a one-size-fits-all model, it sets out specific factors to consider in reforming governance models to meet the demands of our times.

Introduction This article explores the connection between the good practice and the good governance in university governance by boards of governors, regents or trustees across the British Commonwealth and the United States.The paper identifies five primary models of board level governance in universities: (1) faculty; (2) corporate; (3) trustee governance; (4) stakeholder; and (5) amalgam models of governance. It discusses how these models work in practice. It concentrates on governance by boards of governors at the same time considering bicameral governance divided between governing boards and academic senates as well as between faculty and © 2008 The Author. Journal compilation © 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford, OX4, 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA.

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student governing bodies (Sturner, 1971).The analysis demonstrates that each governance model serves different purposes in different contexts and at different times.Whatever the virtue of a governance model may be in the abstract, its functional value hinges on how it is applied in a particular case. Ultimately, each governance model is only as effective as those who craft it along with those who order their lives in light of it. Some preliminary comments The term ‘governance’ refers to the ‘processes of decision-making within an institution [which] . . . enable an institution to set its policies and objectives, to achieve them, and to monitor its progress towards their achievement’ (Oxford, 2006). Governance of public universities is significantly influenced by government policy, with particular emphasis on efficiency. The Jarrett Report focused on the efficiency of governance (Jarrett Report, 1985).The Dearing Committee (NCIHE, 1997, para 73) a decade later, recommended on the ‘effectiveness of management and governance arrangements’ in universities. It also recognised three guiding principles: institutional autonomy, academic freedom and openness: • institutional autonomy should be respected; • academic freedom within the law should be protected; • governance arrangements should be open and responsive. The Dearing Report emphasised that universities had to become more efficient, given the dramatic decline in public funding per student. Universities also had to become more accountable, more collaborative and more responsive to financial dictates in meeting these challenges. The Guide for Members of Higher Education Governing Bodies in the United Kingdom (CUC, 2004), initiated in 1995 and consolidated in 2004, serves as a more explicit code of governance practice. Devised by the Committee of University Chairmen (CUC), it provides that governing bodies in UK universities act responsibly, meet regularly, approve the vision and mission statement of the university, and appoint and guide management. Providing for governance structures and processes, it sets out guidelines on the selection of members by a nomination committee, processes for induction of members, procedures for meetings including open hearings and provision for performance standards measured against key performance indicators.The guide also includes ‘principles of governance’ for the board’s proper conduct of public business, strategic planning, effective monitoring, and finance and audit, among other functions (CUC, 2004). An evolving guide on good governance practice, © 2008 The Author. Journal compilation © 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

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the CUC Committee does not purport to provide a blueprint on the operation of university governance itself (Committee of University Chairmen (CUC), 2007). The purpose of this paper is not to rehash either the Dearing Report or the CUC guidelines, but to scrutinise competing models of governance that together serve as components in the complex structures of university governance. Comparative in nature, the study analyses models of university governance, not only in the UK, but also in Australia and the United States. Crises of confidence Why are governments, universities and the public often preoccupied with governance? Most universities face crises of confidence in governance at some stage in their evolution (Filler, 1965; Lazerson, 1997; Hines, 2000). Some problems are distinctly structural, such as arising out of large boards of governors representing diffuse interest groups. Many are financial, such as stemming from pressing financial exigencies owing to government cutbacks or declining local or international enrolments. Some relate to the governance of dysfunctional units within otherwise well-governed universities. Many problems arise simply because public universities are constantly in a state of flux and metamorphosis that is in the nature of academic life (Millett, 1978; Corson, 1979; Beach, 1985; Barnett, 1994; Kezar, 2004). Frequently, perceived governance crises prompt governing bodies to make exaggerated changes in governance models in order to produce radical different results. Such overreaction may protract bad governance practice, as when glitches in personnel and financial systems lead to micromanaged financial systems in which every transaction is scrutineered for irregularities. Similar overreactions can occur in human resource management, as when deficiencies in the management of personnel prompt overzealous reaction, typified by mandating personnel training programs ad nauseam to nip peripheral problems in the bud. Such overzealousness may be accompanied by exaggerated efforts at public disclosure, rendering accountability in the public interest into an exuberance that misunderstands the significance of transparent compliance on the public record. Governance problems may be exacerbated, as when boards of governors or senior managers overrespond to crises or clash over the management of those crises. Equally troubling is the problem of universities dealing secretly with fissures in their governance structures, seeking to © 2008 The Author. Journal compilation © 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

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shut down the source of the fissure or paper it over with an incomplete solution rather than deal with it directly. An example would be sustained spending on academic programmes that fail to produce promised revenue streams, coupled with fictional or feigned compliance with governance models directed at reducing those expenditures. The result all too often is a lack of openness in applying a governance model to a particular case or an unwillingness to recognise the need to apply that model at all (Mortimer (1971); Carnegie Commission on Higher Education, 1973 and 1982). Modelling new governance structures A one-size-fits-all model of governance does not exemplify ‘good’ practice (Young, 2003; Edwards, 2006). Conversely, governance problems may be comparable at different tertiary institutions. The need is to avoid replicating bad practice while trying to benchmark good practice. Modelling new governance structures at universities requires a sustained commitment to identifying what an institution was, what it is and what it might become. Such modelling ordinarily should be conducted within the framework of a strategic planning exercise, including preparing stakeholders for prospective change. Modelling should also be politically informed. Every model of governance has political ramifications that need to be considered without becoming captive to them (Gilmour, 1991b; Trow, 1998; Gallagher, 2001; Pusser and Ordorika, 2001). In effect, governing bodies should serve as the agents of change. More often than not, resistance to change stems from a lack of stomach to initiate or complete change for fear of acting precipitously, too soon or too late.The test of a governing body’s capacity for change ultimately lies in its willingness and ability not only to recognise deficiencies in governance models but also to arrive at viable means of remedying them (Carnegie Commission on Higher Education, 1973). Five models of university governance University governance by the academic staff The most traditional model of university governance assumes that universities should principally be governed by their academic staff, which is sometimes identified with collegial governance.This usually occurs either by granting expansive governance powers to university senates or by significant faculty representation on boards of governors, or both (Moore, 1975; Strohm, 1981; Gilmour, 1991a; Lee, 1991; Griffith, 1993; Trow, © 2008 The Author. Journal compilation © 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.


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1998; Miller, 1999; Jordan, 2001).A pervasive reason for this model is that academic staff ordinarily are best equipped to understand the academic goals and aspirations of a university and how to achieve them (Pfnister, 1970; Williams et al., 1987; Dill and Helm, 1988; Evans, 1999). The faculty governance model is subject to different pressures. On one hand, it is the most attacked of the governance models (Burgan, 1998). On the other hand, it is the governance model that universities most frequently return to, even if only in part, in the face of difficulties with the alternatives. Frequent criticisms directed at extensive reliance on a faculty governance model are those that pertain to the academic staff often lacking governance skill or interest – in determining governance policy, in relating to stakeholders who are not directly involved in teaching or research and in assuming responsibility for finances and personnel within complex management and financial systems (Villanova University, 1997; Lewis, 2000; UNISA, 2003). Nevertheless, despite these criticisms the support for faculty governance remains strong. From a philosophical perspective, faculty governance is associated with ‘academic democracy’ (Dewey, 1966; Hall and Symes, 2005). Typifying such a governance model is the academic democracy associated with Cambridge University. Under its statutes, the governing body of Cambridge University is Regent House, consisting of over 3,000 university officers and college fellows that are responsible for the governance of the university (Cambridge, 2001). ‘Academic democracies’ are currently subject to significant pressure including in bicameral systems in which faculty and board or trustee governance is separated. At concern is the issue that faculty governance will accord a disproportionately greater stress to respecting the university’s independent academic mission, accompanied with less emphasis on improving its corporate capabilities through partnerships with government, commerce and industry (UNISA, 2003; Coaldrake, Stedman and Little, 2003). Even under the Cambridge model of ‘academic democracy’, key executive and policy-making functions at Cambridge are statutorily vested in a university council. As that council is accountable to the academic body, Regent House, in practice, it also exercises key executive functions for and on behalf of the university. Faculty governance is also doubted on grounds that the academic staff may lack the requisite skill in financial management and accountability. Even the vice-chancellor at Cambridge has expressed doubts about financial management, reduced government funding and accountability for governance decision-making there (Scott, 1996; Middlehurst, 2004; Cambridge Vice-Chancellor, 2005). © 2008 The Author. Journal compilation © 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

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The concern that the academic staff are untrained in governance does not infer that such governance is permanently tainted. Training selected members of academic staff to assume governance roles on boards of governors, as presidents, provosts, vice-presidents and deans is increasingly practiced. American universities have turned the training of university administrators into a business. Harvard Business School offers courses in executive and financial management with huge tuition fees in excess of US$50,000 (Harvard University, 2007), although organisations like the Chronicle of Higher Education in the United States do so far a lot less (Chronicle of Higher Education, 2007). Such training often involves developing an understanding of the relationship between governance and management, including the responsibility of managers to carry out delegated governance functions. It is also a proactive way in which to prop up deficiencies in academic governance that continues to include academic staff. Almost all universities rely on academic governance to some degree. However, significant differences arise as to the exclusivity of this model, if it is limited to academic governance as distinct from other forms of governance notably financial (Keller, 1987). Dismissing faculty governance models out of hand amounts to throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Faculty governance models have produced positive results in selected areas of governance, such as in building governance structures and strengthening relationships with important constituencies such as unions and students (Plante and Collier, 1989; Kermerer and Baldridge, 1981; Newman and Bartee, 1999; Ramo, 1997 and 2001). It is a model that academic staff can learn to understand, develop and implement (Randell and Miller, 2001). Despite the resurrection of academic governance, a shift towards ‘professional’ governance is especially notable in regard to financial matters. Almost apologetic reasons given for resort to such professionalism at universities like Cambridge include, among others, problems of ‘chronic under-resourcing’, the university’s ‘inability to adapt quickly to changing demands and circumstances’ and its need for ‘accountability in the way decisions are taken and implemented’ (Cambridge, 2001; Cambridge Vice-Chancellor, 2005). Corporate governance The corporate governance model is prevalent today in universities, including in Australia (Collis, 2000; Nelson, 2003; UNISA, 2003; Considine, 2004; Edith Cowan University, 2007). Concentrating on the © 2008 The Author. Journal compilation © 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.


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fiscal and managerial responsibility of those charged with governance of the university, a corporate governance model is based on a business-case model for universities. It is also grounded in the captivating rationale of corporate efficiency, in reaction to the criticisms that public universities are poorly managed or fiscally inefficient and on the assumption that modelling on corporate governance can redress these deficiencies (Duryea and Williams, 2000; Mingle, 2000). Some public universities outside the United States have moved structurally closer to a corporate governance model, with a chair and smaller board of governors or trustees directing the governance of the university, with a chief executive officer, chief operating officer and chief financial officer serving the board as the senior management team. In some respects, the University of New South Wales is a leader in this development (University of New South Wales, 2007). Supporters of the corporate governance model insist that universities should be governed by professionals who are trained and experienced in corporate policy and planning, and able to direct management efficiently. Some would expect academics to engage in teaching, research and public service and but also to varying degrees in university governance (Dimond, 1991; Kissler, 1997; Zemsky, Wagner and Massy, 2005). In contrast, some leading universities dispute any resort to corporate governance.Typifying this view is Oxford University’s faculty-wide rejection of the ‘managerial bandwagon’ of corporate governance.They assert that managerial governance produces only partial and short-term governance solutions (The Guardian, 2006). The corporate governance model is sometimes highlighted in times of severe economic difficulties, such as what occurred most recently in Ontario, Canada in response to reduced government funding, the abolition of mandatory retirement and the decline in full-fee-paying international students (McMaster University, 2006). It is adopted in Australia, too, to comply with government demands for more costeffective and cost-reducing university management (Australian ViceChancellors Committee, 2003; Nelson, 2003). Academic staff at universities like Oxford passionately refuse to be ‘traumatised’ by the global wave of institutional controls that have evolved in the corporate sector following the collapse of mismanaged companies like Barings Bank in the United Kingdom in the 1990s (The Guardian, 2006). A primary criticism of the corporate governance model is that it will lead to the ‘commodification’ of education, displacing academic distinc© 2008 The Author. Journal compilation © 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

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tiveness in the pursuit of corporate efficiency (Bok, 2003; Geiger, 2004). The classic argument is that universities do not buy and sell ‘widgets’ (Washburn, 2005). Yet, even those who are sceptical of corporate governance models in universities admit that ‘big universities’ include diffuse centres of profit and loss; they have complex budgets; and they ‘sell’ their educational services to disparate ‘buyers’ within a competitive and sometimes cutthroat marketplace, not unlike profit–oriented corporations (Lombardi et al., 2002; Kirp, 2003; Schultz, 2005).There is further recognition that public universities increasingly pursue full-fee-paying local and international students to ‘balance the books’ as much as to advance knowledge (Cohen, 2005). For others, corporate governance may be viewed as necessary to satisfy the immediate fiscal needs of universities; and corporate efficiency is a way in which to do so (Lombardi et al., 2002; Newman, Couturier and Scurry, 2004). However supportable the case for corporate governance of universities may be, it is distinguishable in both principle and practice from the management of corporations by corporate boards. Universities do not have duties towards corporate shareholders but owe interlocking duties to a range of stakeholders: students, faculty and staff, corporate partners, government and the public at large. University boards are staffed primarily by volunteers and are not subject to identical standards of performance and accountability as corporate boards. Even if university governors are subject to corporate responsibility to diverse stakeholders, it is necessary to determine to which stakeholders they are primarily responsible to and if those responsibilities are corporate. One view is that primary responsibility is owed variously to students, academic staff, alumni, staff and a range of other stakeholders and investors arising from duties of trust and confidence owed to them (Bess, 1988). Another view is that the primary stakeholder of public universities ought to be to the government, requiring that governing boards comply with statutory duties of disclosure and conflict of interest, not unlike those imposed on corporate directors. The problem is that statutory duties imposed on corporate boards tend to be more onerous than duties imposed by governments on university boards. Governments impose a range of interlocking duties on corporate boards as to how to trade stock, how minority shareholders are to be treated and how inside traders should be constrained. They do not impose comparable duties on the boards of public universities in which stock, minority shareholders and insider traders are alien to. © 2008 The Author. Journal compilation © 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.


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At the same time, some practical attributes of corporate governance match the requirements of universities. University boards increasingly are expected to govern universities in a fiscally responsible and efficient manner. Board meetings are to be run openly and board members are to be accountable to it. Financial and personnel governance of universities is also increasingly preoccupied with setting key performance indicators for management and monitoring the success in meeting financial targets. It may be that securing philanthropy is a preoccupation of governing boards of universities, as distinct from corporations: but philanthropy is itself a business preoccupation of universities that is often directed at offsetting declines in government funding per student (Dearing Report, 1997). In summary, universities need to be ‘corporatised’ to some degree if they are to be governed responsibly. Their differences from profitoriented corporations should not be used as barriers to them operating in an economically efficient manner. The extent to which universities choose to adopt a corporate governance model depends on the context. The issue is to determine the governance model that best suits the context, knowing that a model suited to one context may be ill-fitting in others. Trustee governance The trustee model of university governance has acquired some cogency in universities generally. For example, in 1995, the Hoare Report in Australia that influenced the Dearing Report in the United Kingdom (NCIHE, 1997) recommended the wider adoption of trustee governance and less representational membership (Hoare, 1995). Trustee governance is different from shared governance. Shared governance, sometimes described as collegial governance, is based on the representational notion that universities ought to be run collegially by those with a stake in it (Ingram, 1993; Griffith, 1993; Morphew, 1999; Swansson et al., 2005). Trustee governance is not directly concerned with stakeholder representation in governance. Rather, it refers to the manner of governance, specifically governance through a ‘trust’ relationship between a trustee board that acts in trust for, and on behalf of, trust beneficiaries. This trustee model is articulated structurally through the mechanism of trust duties. In effect, trustee boards have the fiduciary duty to discharge their trust ‘with the utmost good faith’ towards the beneficiaries of that trust ( Jackon and Crowley, 2006). The fiduciary duties of the board and its individual members also includes related duties, such as to exercise the highest levels of diligence © 2008 The Author. Journal compilation © 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

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in protecting the trust, including disclosing any factor that might constitute a conflict of interest with that trust (Chait, Holland and Taylor, 1991). Advocates of trustee governance envisage it as providing the assurance that university governors will act for, and on behalf of, the university and in the diligent discharge of a public trust. Trustee governance also has particular appeal to those who see university governors as having an in loco parentis responsibility towards students. In reality, the trustee model is vague at best. There are few instances of it serving as a pervasive model of governance in public universities, although trusteeship is often invoked to stress how a particular university fulfils its fiduciary duties towards its students, staff, government and the public at large. However, the trustee model does have particular appeal in times of cynicism and preoccupation with ethics and professional responsibility. With some American institutions at the forefront of ethics scandals and with British Commonwealth universities similarly preoccupied, trustee models are resorted to in the face of concerns about the safety and security of students, confidence in senior administrators and worries about intemperate leadership. For example, the forced 2005 resignation of the president of American University for spending excesses and the resignation of the system president of the University of Colorado for failing to discipline staff and students accused of serious offences. (American University, 2005; The Widening Witch Hunt, 2005). In summary, trustee models remain somewhat vague. They also tend to work around the edges of university governance. A particular risk is that the language of trusteeship may be invoked to prop up a marketing and development campaign. At the same time there is nothing fundamentally wrong with adopting a trustee model of governance in which an incidental benefit of that trust is the mobilisation of a university marketing and development campaign. Stakeholder governance A stakeholder model of governance, identified variously with collegial and representative governance, occurs when governance is vested in a wide array of stakeholders including, among others, students, academic staff, alumni, corporate partners, government and the public at large (Baldridge, 1982; Hill, Green and Eckel, 2001; Longin, 2002). The stakeholder model exemplifies shared governance (Schick, 1992; Drummond and Reitsch, 1995; Eckel, 2000; USC, 2006). Distinguishable from faculty governance, it vests governance in multiple representatives © 2008 The Author. Journal compilation © 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.


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not limited to academic staff. Differentiated from corporate governance, stakeholder governance conceives of governance authorities as broadly representative as distinct from professional and business focused boards; and the stakeholders’ mandate extends beyond the efficient management and fiscal responsibility of corporate governance boards (American Association of University Professors, 1966; American Federation of Teachers, 2002). At its most inclusive, stakeholder governance provides for wide participation by internal and external stakeholders in decision-making beyond the appointment of representatives of a range of stakeholder groups (Alfred, 1985; Gilmour, 1991a; Floyd, 1994; Lapworth, 2004; Currie, 2005). Typifying expansive stakeholder governance is representation on university boards of community groups that, though not formally associated with the university, reflect environmental, ethnic, gender and other public interests that are particularly germane to the university at that time. The problem with stakeholder governance is in determining which stakeholders ought to be represented on governing bodies, the manner of their representation and the extent of their authority. At its most polarising, stakeholder governance regresses into an ineffective ‘talking shop’ in which stakeholders falsely assume that they are responsible to the constituent interests that elected or nominated them rather than to the university as a whole. Despite these deficiencies, public universities generally employ some form of stakeholder governance, notably having nominated or elected members of academic staff, students, or government representatives on their boards. However, they diverge significantly in the composition of those boards, as well as in the authority accorded to disparate stakeholders (Baldridge, 1982; Wolvin, 1991; Leatherman, 1998; McCormack and Brennen, 1999; Baldwin and Leslie, 2001; Gerber, 2001; Tierney, 2001; Gayle, Tewarie and White, 2003).

Amalgam models of governance Amalgam models of university governance include some combination of academic staff, corporate, trustee and stakeholder governance (Birnbaum, 1991). Typical of an amalgam model is this statement of governance responsibility: • building the knowledge base of the whole society; • profit in the for-profit activities; © 2008 The Author. Journal compilation © 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

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• prudent, appropriate and complete expenditure of funds provided by government for specific purposes; • producing innovations that underpin economic development; • ensuring freedom for academic staff to provide public comment and give advice on issues in their areas of expertise; • building critical mass in those discipline or professional areas in which the university seeks to excel; • providing an environment where students have the opportunity, whatever their background, to achieve all that is possible for them. The amalgam model usually involves a readiness to experiment with innovation in university governance, such as by providing for extensive consultation on public interest decisions, varying from equity in admissions to environmental protection. The benefit of an amalgam model of governance is that it is able to incorporate the strengths of different governance models to suit the specific needs of the university (Dearlove, 1997).

Benchmarking governance models Universities may also benchmark their governance models on other institutions, so long as they recognise the need to adapt them in light of their own particular histories, needs and practices. Governance models may function differently in response to divergent institutional cultures. A long history of autocratic governance by a board of governors or a president may imbed a distinctly non-collaborative practice of governance even though the model formally presented is one of collaboration. Universities that claim to benchmark their governance structures on good practice elsewhere, notably in times of crises, may do so as window dressing to appease influential stakeholders or redress disaffection with processes of governance. An allusion of a student-centred model of governance, presenting the university as collaborative and consultative, may deny the reality that governance is aloof from students and their concerns (Keating, 2005). The conception of a bicameral student and a faculty model of governance, working ‘separately but equally’ may be separate but very unequal in fact. Typifying perceived failures in bicameral student–university governance occur when students protest university governance decisions for being autocratic and for not including the student voice. © 2008 The Author. Journal compilation © 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.


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Modifying governance models in practice Governance models need to be responsive to the governance context in which they are applied, though not being subjugated by that context (Tierney, 1999; Miller, 2001). Governance models may also grow tired and would need repairing or replacement. Governance relationships become fractured and need healing. Universities that are attuned to these changes may be able to remodel their governance structures incrementally, accommodating evolving relationship between those who govern and those who are governed and in response to cultural, social, political and economic change (Ikenberry, 1971; Collis, 2000). In modifying governance models, a first principle is to determine which is sought through that model, and as a matter of application, how and when to do so. These considerations require an understanding of what the pre-existing governance model lacks and what a particular modification might accomplish. If the problem is a scandal, a trustee model that specifically seeks to rebuild trust might be appropriate. If the problem is financial, a corporate model might be more appropriate. If the problem relates to building quality academic programmes, a faculty governance model may be best. If the problem encompasses an amalgam of different issues, an amalgam model might be apposite. Governance modelling requires careful and periodic review, including identifying how they are working in practice and how they might be modified to work better (Chait, Holland and Taylor, 1991). Modifying governance models should involve an evaluation of the nature of the changes proposed, including how and when to implement them (Hardy, 1990; Schuster, Smith, Corak and Yamada, 1994; Duderstadt, 2001). Governance models sometimes need immediate, radical and uncompromising modifications. They sometimes need expert third party input to offset the predisposition of internal governors and managers. Changing structures of governance Evaluating the sufficiency of a governance model requires consideration of its structure, operational efficiencies and ways of remedying its deficiencies (Silverman, 1971; Rosovsky, 2001; Rhoades, 1995). Modifying the structure of governance may be required in response to an external crisis, such as to a cutback in government funding or a crisis of confidence in leadership. Governance structures and processes may be changed in response to internal crises such as allegations of misappropriation of funds by university staff, plagiarism by academics or improper © 2008 The Author. Journal compilation © 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

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conduct by members of sports teams.These crises may impact upon, and indeed test, both existing governance structures and their operations. Sometimes defects in the structure of governance models are dressed up as crises of confidence in individuals, such as when ambiguous governance protocols and delegations are recast into crises of confidence in a university president. Such crises often demonstrate the extent to which governance models are misunderstood and can be manipulated.

Changing governance relationships The success or failure of governance models often depends on relationships, such as between a governing board and a president. The influence of changing relationships may be subtle. For example, a board that adheres to a corporate governance model may hold the president accountability for the profitable operation of the university more than for other purposes. A board that favours a trusteeship model may be more concerned about the extent to which that president has fulfilled a mandate of trust towards specific stakeholders. Fractured relationships such as between a board and president may lead to changes in governance and management protocols. Making such changes requires a careful scrutiny of the history of the governance relationship, the manner in which decisions have been reached in light of them; the extent to which those decisions conform to governance protocols; the manner in which decision-makers are held accountable for those decisions and by whom; the procedures used to determine ensuing accountability; and the impact of structures and processes of governance upon decision-making itself (Dill, 1971; Kaplan, 2002; Kezar and Eckel, 2004). Illustrating responses to fractured relationships were proposed modifications to protocols governing financial delegations and spending powers of senior managers at American University following the resignation of its President in 2005. A testing issue is to determine the kind and quality of governance structure that is most fitting in each discrete context and how to modify governance relationships to arrive at it. (Association of Governing Boards of Universities, 1996). The following are suggestions in assessing the sufficiency of governance models: • Being able to steer a governance course that recognises the reasons behind competing interests in governance and not to endorse any one interest over others on arbitrary grounds. © 2008 The Author. Journal compilation © 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.


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• Recognising the need for changes in governance structures and important first steps in making such changes. • Being able to identify and respond to governance issues in advance of a crisis and preferably before too much damage is done. • Restructuring governance models in conjunction with structural change, such as through reorganising academic and non-academic programmes.

Conclusions There is growing debate among public universities in many Englishspeaking environments about how to deal with governance crises. One fear is that a governance crisis will cause a flight of staff and students to universities elsewhere. A converse fear is that, if a governance crisis is not revealed, the university will implode. One should also not overstate such crises of confidence. Despite highly-publicised conflicts over university governance at some leading public institutions, not least of all at Oxford University, most governance conflicts are resolved and normalcy does resume. ‘Good’ university governance also does not simply happen. It is usually the product of painstaking effort to arrive at suitable governance structures, protocols and processes. ‘Good’ governance is also about timing and judgement: it requires boards of governors to recognise when a governance model is not working, why and how to repair it. Ultimately, governance models are created by people to govern people.They are only as good as they who devise and apply them, as well as those who live by them.

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Quality Assurance and Quality Enhancement in Higher Education: Contested Territories? Ourania Filippakou, Institute of Education, and Ted Tapper, Oxford Centre for Higher Education Policy Studies

Abstract This paper analyses the unfolding of the quality agenda in England from 1992 to the present. By using two disciplinary approaches, ‘political science’ and ‘social philosophy’, the article traces the recent transition from quality assurance to quality enhancement. How is this development to be explained and how significant is it? Are the concepts of quality assurance and quality enhancement contested territories? The article argues that the undermining of quality assurance was the consequence of the emergence of a different kind of higher education politics in Britain: the shift from a corporatist model to one driven by pressure-group politics. Furthermore, although theoretically quality enhancement has the potential of a transformative discourse, it is unlikely to unsettle the relative stable structures in which quality assurance functions.

Introduction With the passage of the 1992 Further and Higher Education Act in the UK, the evaluation of the teaching and learning process in British higher education was placed on a statutory basis. Henceforth the state would assume this responsibility. The central purpose of this article is to set up a dialogue between two intellectual approaches, political science and social philosophy, to explore both the course of the quality agenda in English higher education and the possibility that a new form of evaluation, that is quality enhancement, is about to emerge. The paper is divided into two main parts. First, it examines the development of the quality agenda in England from the perspective of political struggle, as a highly contested policy arena. However, the inten© 2008 The Authors. Journal compilation © 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford, OX4, 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA.

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tion is not to present a historical overview of the political evolution of quality assurance in England as a policy issue (see Brown, 2004; Harvey, 2005; Filippakou and Tapper, 2007). The focus is upon state power, its interaction with the quasi-state (primarily the funding councils created by the 1992 legislation), how the organised higher education interests, more especially the three institutional groupings (Russell Group, 94 Group, Million+1) engage with the state structures, and what autonomy this leaves to the individual institutions. Second, drawing upon social philosophy, the analysis focuses upon quality as a contested idea. In what ways has the idea been interpreted within the contemporary history of English higher education? What messages do these interpretations convey about the system of higher education: its purposes, how it functions, its internal social relationships as well as its wider responsibilities to state and society? The focus here is very much upon the increasing concern with quality enhancement. Does its emergence signify a new direction for understanding quality both as an idea and in practice? Understanding the quality agenda: a political interpretation The fact that the quality agenda in British higher education has been contested territory is no more than a statement of the obvious. Significantly, however, political conflict has not been drawn along sharp party lines and at least initially Labour governments took a broadly similar policy line to prior Conservative governments. An examination of the general election manifestos between 1987 and 2005 reveals that the higher education quality debate scarcely merited a mention (Tapper, 2007, p. 100–106). The changes in the quality agenda since 1997, although requiring government action, have been a consequence of pressure from within the higher education sector itself. The conflicts generated by the rise of ‘the new public management’ mode of governance (Bleiklie, 1998; Leisyte, 2005) have tended to pit the executive against the legislature (especially parliamentary committees), rather than existing government policy against past government policy and, it is the will of the executive that has tended, at least in the short term, to prevail. In broad political terms, the contested territory of the quality agenda represents a struggle between the state and the interests of higher education to define how the universities are to be governed. Even if there is universal recognition of the need for some official monitoring of the teaching and learning process (Stoddart, quoted in Brown, 2004: p. x), © 2008 The Authors. Journal compilation © 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

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several contentious issues have to be resolved: the purpose of the process, how it is to be implemented and what the policy outcomes should be. Inevitably how these issues are resolved will help to shape the character of higher education governance. The State, quasi-state and quality assurance Although the history of higher education in Britain may demonstrate a deeply embedded interest in the quality of the teaching and learning process (Watson, 2005), the current quality régime is very much a product of state action. On the one hand it seems to be a straightforward manifestation of the regulatory state. If the state was intent upon evaluating research output to determine the distribution of research income (and to use this as a lever to encourage, even require, universities to organise their research activities), and (especially after 1997) to demand that all higher education institutions had to participate in its widening participation agenda (with incentives to encourage participation and the use of performance indicators to measure compliance), then there was no reason why the teaching and learning process should be exempted from the gaze of the regulatory state. Suspicions as to government intentions were scarcely allayed by the recommendations of the subsequent National Committee of Inquiry into Higher Education (NCIHE): to modify substantially the established system of external examiners (by creating a pool of accredited external examiners), to encourage higher education institutions to develop ‘for each programme they offer a “programme specification” which identifies potential stopping-off points and gives the intended outcomes of the programme’, and to propose that the remit of the Quality Assurance Agency (QAA) should be amended to include ‘standards verification’ (NCIHE, 1997: recommendations 25, 21 and 24). The threat of intrusion was expanding with the QAA, in a 1998 consultative document, proposing to create ‘a cadre of nationally trained, registered and administered external examiners – effectively a higher education HMI . . . ’ (Salter and Tapper, 2000, pp. 81). Fuelling the initial fears was the embedding of quality assurance explicitly in a legislative framework. The 1992 Further and Higher Education Act required the funding councils to ‘establish a committee to be known as the “Quality Assessment Committee”, with the function of giving them advice on the discharge of their duty . . . ’ (Further and Higher Education Act, 1992: 70–1b). The funding councils, therefore, had the authority to assume direct control of, as well as formal respon© 2008 The Authors. Journal compilation © 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.


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sibility for, quality audit. The particular duty to which the legislation referred was the need to assess the quality of education provided in institutions they were supporting financially. Moreover, as if to reinforce the point, several annual grant letters issued by both Conservative and Labour Secretaries of State have reiterated a political desire to link the funding of teaching to quality assessment (DfE, 1993; DfEE, 1995, 1997). Although no direct link between quality assurance outcomes and funding was established (with the exception of the Research Assessment Exercises (RAE)) the threat was clearly present. However, this is to present only part of the evidence. The 1992 Act had abolished the binary line and opened up the stampede towards the acquisition of the university title. Therefore, the time had arrived to replace the Council for National Academic Awards with a body that had a remit covering the whole of the now unitary structure of higher education. Either that or the new universities had to be given the same quality control procedures as the pre-1992 universities. In effect something more akin to the polytechnic régime prevailed over university practices. It is of equal significance that, in spite of the repeated pleas of the Secretary of State (which grew fainter over time) to link funding to quality assessment, except at the margins, nothing of the sort has occurred. In this respect the regulatory state appears to have become an end in itself rather than a means of securing this particular policy goal. Significantly, the legislation was drawn up in a way that made the consequences of quality assessment essentially advisory in nature. The funding councils could decide to underwrite the costs of teaching even if an institution (as occurred on several occasions) purposefully stonewalled a QAA visit. This is not to deny the possibility that quality assurance enhanced university practices, which, not surprisingly, was often asserted in official quarters, but rather to make the point that there were no serious financial penalties dependent explicitly upon the quality assurance process. The point illustrated by both policy issues is the tension within the policy making process between the state and the quasi-state with no clear boundary between their respective spheres of authority, accompanied by the realisation that they may have different interpretations of what constitutes desirable policy outcomes. It is important to remember, therefore, that the evolution of the policy making process in higher education is not simply a record of expanding state power. While there may have been periodic political intervention in the quality assurance regime post1992, the evolution of policy represented a complex interaction of government pressure, quasi-state resistance and initiatives which were © 2008 The Authors. Journal compilation © 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

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accompanied by the lobbying of the organisations that represented higher education’s institutional interests. A particular problem for the state is that historically the central educational apparatus (at the time of writing, the Department for Education and Skills) acquired few responsibilities for higher education, and more especially the universities, and even with the comparatively recent creation of a departmental Higher Education Directorate probably still lacks the expertise to deal with a policy issue like quality that has so many entwining technical and value-laden dimensions. It is safer to leave it to the quasi-state (in this case the QAA) and so avoid entanglement in the details of policy implementation. From academic corporatism to pressure group politics: academics, academic interests and the quality régime Regulation in higher education consists of a process that incorporates standard setting, monitoring, evaluation, and resource allocation and distribution. The first three of these functions are, even if in practice delegated, formally the responsibility of the funding councils.The fourth is shared between the funding council and the appropriate government department: the overall level of resource allocation is politically determined while the funding council defines the distributive model (although this does not rule out political intervention as the creation of the 6* grade following the Research Assessment Exercise – RAE – of 2001 demonstrates). Although with respect to the quality régime the funding councils have been responsible for the first three functions (delegated to their Quality Assessment Committees, which post-1997 have worked through the QAA) they have been heavily dependent upon both academics and academic managers to undertake the basic tasks. Quality became a growth industry incorporating the academic world in both the assessment process itself and research into its modus operandi. A corporatist control model was created with academics operating the quality mechanisms on behalf of the quasi-state. In a sense this was self-policing but conducted within a framework that was formally the responsibility of the central state. Besides personal career advancement, the assessment of the teaching and learning process also offered institutional reassurance (that departments were doing a job that at the very least met minimum quality standards), which was undoubtedly a pay-off for both the institutions and the state. Against this has to be weighed the general anxiety they generated along with some intense hostility (Macleod, 2001). © 2008 The Authors. Journal compilation © 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.


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While individual academics were from the very start incorporated into the quality régime, academic corporatism initially did not extend to include the higher education representative bodies, of which the Committee of Vice-Chancellors and Principals (CVCP, soon to become Universities UK (UUK)) was the most important. Indeed, the CVCP had set up the Academic Audit Unit in an attempt to ward off government action, and when that failed it created (in conjunction with the Standing Conference of Principals (SCOP) now known as GuildHE) the Higher Education Quality Council. Thus for a period of time (1992–1997) two parallel systems of quality regulation (institutional audit and departmental assessment) were running in tandem. However, the agreement to set up the QAA (owned by the representative bodies and performing the quality functions of the Quality Assessment Committees on the basis of a service agreement) completed the corporatist circle; the key institutional interests were now on board and the quality régime took off as a higher education growth industry. However, the academic corporatism that had secured the 1997 agreement was increasingly threatened by the propensity towards factionalism within the higher education sector.The unity of UUK was shaken by the growth of internal splinter groups: the Russell Group, the 94 Group and the Campaign for Mainstream Universities (now Million+). Over time, these groups have developed their own organisational base and see themselves as more effective advocates of their members’ interests than UUK. In other words, appearances notwithstanding, the 1997 agreement was from the outset, more fragile than the institutional consensus suggested (Brown, 1997, 1998). While the corporatist model is far from dead, it steadily makes more sense to see higher education policy as shaped not so much by insider dealing between the major institutional actors (the state institutions, the funding councils and the all-embracing representative interests of higher education) but rather as the product of more visible and aggressive pressure group politics. It may be purely a coincidence that much of the most vocal opposition to the post-1997 quality régime came from universities in the Russell Group but it may also have been stimulated by their relatively similar market position (Macleod, 2001; Tysome, 1998). Furthermore, the erosion of the insecure corporatist model has been reinforced by the intensification of market pressures, which will undoubtedly start to exert an increasingly significant impact upon the quality agenda, and indeed the whole governance of English higher education. The trend towards institutional fragmentation has been strongly reinforced by significant developments in the governance of higher © 2008 The Authors. Journal compilation © 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

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education. Historically, for the universities policy closure depended upon the dominance of the University Grants Committee and if it looked outwards it was to the CVCP and scarcely any further. Moreover, this was a situation that had broad political support. A variety of developments have altered the situation radically: the expansion of the system, including the redefinition of the former polytechnics and some colleges as universities, the question of how its increasing costs were to be underwritten, and the perception of higher education as a force for economic growth and social progress. Within the political system higher education policy has become keenly contested territory. In the shaping of policy outcomes the department and funding council have to compete with, or at least take cognisance of at least, the Treasury and the Prime Minister’s Office, as well as various parliamentary committees. With its numerous access points the political system is highly amenable to pressure group politics, including on occasions the input of powerful vicechancellors. Understanding the quality agenda: social philosophy and the rise of quality enhancement In view of the increasing visibility of higher education as a political issue and the fragmentation of the higher education lobby into different organisational interests, it is unsurprising that the settlement, that Brown (1997, 1998) saw as fragile from its commencement, soon came under threat. The completion by 2002 of a full cycle of subject assessments provided an opportunity to move towards what was known as a ‘light touch’ régime, which in 2005 became lighter still. While it is important not to ignore the context created by the resistance of certain higher education institutions (Baty, 2003; Tysome, 2003), it also has to be recognised that both the QAA itself and the organised higher education interests (UUK and SCOP) were integral to the process of change. The quality régime, defined as the state’s attempt to monitor the quality of the teaching and learning process in British higher education institutions now amounts essentially to institutional audit, with subject assessments all but defunct. In other words, institutions are clearly responsible for their own quality standards, and the purpose of institutional audit is to ensure that they have in place the appropriate procedures to achieve this. However, this is only part of the story, and by no means the most interesting part. Barnett describes social philosophy as ‘. . . an interweaving of the philosophical with the sociological, of the conceptual with the empirical, © 2008 The Authors. Journal compilation © 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.


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of the descriptive with the recommendatory, of the what-is with whatmight-be’ (Barnett, 1994, pp. 3). Drawing upon Barnett’s idea of internal disciplinary tension, how do we interpret developments in the recent quality debate? More especially, if the 2005 shift to institutional audit can be understood in political terms, how are we to interpret the accompanying movement towards redefining quality assurance as quality enhancement? This is a culturally shaped world with its values and means for realising those values. Until now, quality assurance was the dominant concept in the quality debate in England embodying certain values, ideas and images besides creating particular representations of higher education (Filippakou and Barnett, 2006). However, there has undoubtedly been a shift in the quality debate from assurance to enhancement, reflected in the discourse generated by the QAA (e.g. see QAA, 2006 October). Moreover, a new national body, the Higher Education Academy (HEA), was established in 2004. According to the Academy’s Strategic Plan, 2005–2010 the creation of the HEA reflects an attempt to coordinate more effectively the work of existing higher education quangos in the expectation that this would provide stronger support for the enhancement of the student learning experience (HEA, 2007). Why did this apparent change of direction take place? Is quality enhancement really a different discourse, which can enable us to interpret the higher education quality agenda in new ways? Or is quality enhancement simply part of the developing discourse of quality assurance with its potential for change threatened by the way it may be put into practice? Ultimately, has quality enhancement anything new to add to the quality debate? Although there are established representations of ideas, these can be reformulated and in so doing the world can be changed (or, more modestly, at least established practices can be modified). However, there is both constraint and freedom. With respect to the quality agenda in higher education, the idea of quality enhancement potentially provides more space for such freedom; it may give rise to a more complex discourse providing more interpretative space. Moreover, whereas quality assurance means making judgements against defined criteria, quality enhancement is less bounded. With the development of quality enhancement, the formerly seemingly stable framings of quality assurance are weakening. The move to quality enhancement, therefore, opens up new possibilities in our understanding of the experience of higher education. In Barnett’s terms is it possible to move from ‘the what-is’ to ‘the what-might-be’? © 2008 The Authors. Journal compilation © 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

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It would appear that assurance and enhancement are concepts with distinctive meanings, with enhancement promising more than assurance, and although apparently giving greater space to academics, also making more demands of them. Furthermore, the discourse is not entirely new; quality enhancement was always an element of the quality assurance methodology, but the recent change in emphasis is marked. However, it is important to ask to what extent this represents a change of purpose and practice? Does quality enhancement have anything new to add to our conceptual understanding of quality and how it is to be pursued? Or is it essentially an evolution of a socially constructed discourse that develops ‘. . . in specific social contexts, and in ways which are appropriate to the interests of social actors in these contexts . . . ’ (Kress and van Leeuwen, 2001, pp. 4)? Quality Assurance and Quality Enhancement: Exploring the Relationships2 There are those who believe that there is an intrinsic tension between quality assurance and quality enhancement. Thus, in the words of the vice-chancellor of a post-1992 university: . . . quality enhancement has almost nothing to do with quality assurance . . . quality enhancement is about instilling in every member of staff the desire to improve quality and giving them the time, the incentive, the means, to actually improve quality that might or might not involve quality assurance . . .

And moreover, Quality assurance could even actually damage quality because it can divert people away from quality enhancement. People think if they’ve got a good quality score . . . that must mean they’ve got high, high quality. [But] high quality results from this endless wanting to improve.

For others a destructive relationship is more likely to emerge should the quality goals be pursued through the imposition of a narrow evaluative framework. The supposition is that quality enhancement can only blossom in the context of a flexible, negotiated evaluative model. A senior quality officer in a university with a strong research reputation has made the point forcefully: If your quality assurance framework is positively draconian, i.e. you don’t leave any scope for people to do anything other than follow absolute rules . . . or you rule the committee structure with a rod of iron and say you know this is what you are going to do and there’s no discussion about it, I should think [you could] scrap quality enhancement altogether. © 2008 The Authors. Journal compilation © 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.


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However, it is also possible to perceive of a positive symbiotic relationship between the two concepts, that they are in effect interactive processes in the improvement of an institution’s teaching and learning mission. Thus, for one former pro-vice chancellor, ‘. . . the only purpose I can think of to quality assurance is quality enhancement’. For another senior quality manager, ‘. . . that’s where your quality assurance procedures come in, they tell you if you meet certain standards and areas which you need to improve’. The issue is whether a positive relationship will indeed evolve. Or will quality enhancement become little more than a new model of quality assurance simply camouflaged by a different descriptive label? In other words how is a concept that potentially offers a different interpretation of the quality agenda actually realised in practice? The institutionalisation of quality enhancement The most critical challenge to the idea of quality enhancement is posed by its institutionalisation. Conventions for quality enhancement need to be defined and systematic structures constructed to develop its practices. Inevitably the unfolding of this process forces a return to the question of who has the power to determine the meaning of the key concepts, how they are to be put into effect, even in institutions that apparently endorse them and what the policy outcomes should be. Central to the political interpretation of the quality agenda was the analysis of the conflict that occurred between differing interests within higher education and how those interests interacted with the quasistate, with the policy decisions ultimately reinforced politically by government authority. A political settlement imposed new practices that curtailed the remit of the QAA while embracing the promotion of quality enhancement through the activities of the HEA and placing more information on institutional practice and performance in the public domain. Forthwith, higher education institutions would face an institutional audit régime and could avail themselves of the support and resources of the HEA to pursue their quality enhancement goals. However, is the apparent change of direction that straightforward? At one level, as this quote from the registrar of an élite university implies, a significant change has indeed occurred: I’ve described to you how the role of the institutions in quality assurance was one of mediation, translation, assimilation between the ideology of the outside organisation and the ideology of the institution. I think the model though is © 2008 The Authors. Journal compilation © 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

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Higher Education Quarterly different with quality enhancement.Yes that happens though the language of the HEA actually needs less translation than the language of the QAA. It’s something which academic staff can actually identify with more comfortably and more naturally anyway.

The implication is that the HEA and QAA direct their messages at different audiences (academics as opposed to institutional managers), and that they interpret the quality agenda in contrasting ways. However, while it may be possible to argue that while the QAA has been brought to heel through the change in its remit, the commitment to at least the old values in fact remains as strong as ever (for a line of analysis that supports this interpretation, see Harvey 2005). Institutional audit (in the process of being defined) has placed responsibility for quality assurance where it was always thought to belong (in the higher education institutions), and it was now time to move on and broaden the agenda by embracing quality enhancement. In part, any evaluation of the transitions to quality enhancement is dependent upon how the virtual ending of departmental inspections should be interpreted. However, QAA bluff notwithstanding (note the current Chief Executive’s reference to a ‘light-touch’ rather than a ‘softtouch’ regime (Williams, 2005)), it is difficult to embrace the idea that institutions willingly cede authority and accept budget cuts, although it is to be expected that they would attempt to rationalise their losses.What we may be witnessing is a more subtle process of change in which the QAA accepts the inevitably of building quality enhancement into the audit process (even acting as a proponent of quality enhancement) while interacting with the HEA to determine the understanding of what quality enhancement actually means. Thus the institutional authority of the QAA is reasserted as its own understanding of quality enhancement is promoted as the favoured model of so-called ‘good practice’ (the promotion of which is another function of the new public management model of governance). Indeed, while the twists and turns in the development of the quality agenda may suggest a fragile evaluative process, it should not be forgotten that the QAA is celebrating its 10th anniversary – a landmark in institutional survival, although not necessarily in institutional achievement. For example, in the following quote, the registrar of an élite university points out the fact that external institutions may try to put into effect a prescriptive evaluative model, which defeats the whole purpose of quality enhancement as a process that, in his opinion, is by definition nonmandatory, and should be shaped by the actual participants in the teaching and learning process: © 2008 The Authors. Journal compilation © 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.


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At the moment the main pattern of behaviour is that the external bodies are helping with quality enhancement on their terms, so they are providing money for certain purposes and certain forms . . . The danger comes when the external bodies go beyond their area and start to dictate how institutional matters should be conducted.

This is carried further by a former registrar who returns to the idea that evaluating quality assurance is an extrinsically different process from the promotion of quality enhancement, and they need to be pursued in a manner that prevents one (quality assurance) from contaminating the other (quality enhancement): The QAA is looking to enhance quality enhancement. Now we also have the HEA, which is, as it were, a central body set up by the universities to assist with quality enhancement and I think what I would see as a satisfactory solution is that body should be acting as a stimulus to the universities. But you shouldn’t have as a stimulus the fear of failing the QAA at audit. That seems to me to be the wrong way round. Quality enhancement will come about because academics themselves feel that more needs to be done, not because they think they are not going to do well in the league tables.

Regardless of what model should be constructed, the key area to explore is what is happening on the ground: in the universities, how the two bodies interact with each other and relate to the universities, and how the representative institutions are going to respond to the emerging outcomes. However, given the change in the role of the QAA, the comparatively recent creation (2004) of the HEA as well as the lack of published research only tentative conclusions are possible. There is little doubt that the two bodies interact with one another through their officials, which would be none too surprising given that they perform complementary, even, it could be argued, overlapping functions, that they have similar origins (emerging out of negotiations between the major higher education institutional interests, the funding councils and the departments of state) and parallel funding support (mainly from the funding councils and institutional subscriptions). Within the context of the increasing emphasis upon quality enhancement how this is promoted by institutions will undoubtedly form an integral part of the QAA’s audit procedures. An obvious institutional link is that the QAA audit régime defines what constitutes an acceptable quality enhancement process, while the HEA proactively enables the universities to achieve this goal, presumably resulting in an improvement of the student learning experience, which is the Academy’s primary mission. © 2008 The Authors. Journal compilation © 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

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However, there are those who remain sceptical. In the words of one senior quality officer: Quality enhancement has become more talked about, more promoted [and] the new audit methodology says that it encourages quality enhancement, I’m not convinced. I’ll wait until we’ve gone through one, the rhetoric is there but . . . I think they’re going to come in and see what our procedures are like as they always have . . . there’s no sign that they’re really going to focus on things that might encourage us really to take the enhancement side more seriously.

A more likely outcome is that the QAA will indeed take quality enhancement seriously but will interpret it in a way that reinforces the agency’s traditional concerns, and so possibly undermining its creative potential? Thus rather than quality enhancement being defined from below it, like quality assurance before it, is controlled from above. If there is to be an institutional definition of quality enhancement, then perhaps this should be the responsibility not of the QAA but of the HEA (drawing upon its experience of supporting programmes designed to develop quality enhancement), and the role of the QAA, through its audit function, should be to examine how creatively the institutions have met that challenge (Harvey and Newton, 2004 also posit the possibility of a positive outcome). The process of conceptual definition and the politics that accompanies it have commenced. Disciplinary dialogue and beyond This article has relied upon ideas drawn from political science and social philosophy to suggest ways of examining the quality agenda. Ideas drawn from political science (corporatism, interest group theory and state power) were used to analyse the shift from the post-1997 quality assurance régime to the emergence of the light (and then lighter) touch quality audit model. The shift from the idea of quality assurance to quality enhancement is currently taking place; in particular how quality enhancement will be institutionalised, that is the structures and procedures that will be put in place to determine what it means in practice. It is too soon to analyse politically this process but the article has drawn upon both Barnett’s interpretation of social philosophy as well as interview data, to draw out the different interpretations of the idea of quality enhancement and more especially to explore whether it is distinctive from the idea of quality assurance. Although the discourse of quality enhancement has the potential to broaden the quality agenda and making it more critically self-reflective, © 2008 The Authors. Journal compilation © 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.


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it should not be forgotten that quality assurance procedures, with considerable support from many interests in higher education, were in operation for some years. Within itself, this makes it unlikely that a dramatic change in the supposedly new régime will take place. The past is supported by vested interests. Furthermore, unless higher education institutions are prepared to put considerable time and energy into developing different interpretations of the meaning and purposes of the quality agenda, and, perhaps more significantly, how they will evaluate whether or not quality enhancement has actually occurred, then again it is unlikely much will change. More importantly, however, are the political and contextual constraints on change. Those higher education interests that campaigned against the quality assurance régime have achieved what they want, a light-, even lighter-, touch model, and have little incentive to move further.There is limited political and financial pressure to persuade them to change The analysis suggests contrasting ways in which the interaction of political science and social philosophy as interpreted in the article can enhance the understanding of the unfolding quality agenda in British higher education. First, they may be seen as such contrasting disciplinary fields that they have little to offer one another. In this interpretation, social philosophy focuses upon the meaning of ideas, while political science is concerned to analyse the process of change. However, this is to make the assumption that ideas are not central to the process of change and that the change process does not, within itself, influence the shaping of ideas. To draw upon Barnett’s understanding of social philosophy, the internal tensions within the discipline change (e.g. the move from ‘what is’ to ‘what might be’) as the change process unfolds. The development of the quality agenda suggests that ideas and power struggles are intimately interrelated but their visibility varies as policy unfolds: ideas are to the fore as policy is formulated, politics dominates the formal construction of policy (the legislative process) while both politics and ideological struggle interact at the implementation stage. However, at no stage is the quality debate entirely immune to either political struggle (thus politics) or conceptual refinement (thus social philosophy). The suggestion, therefore, is that these are differing interpretations of the quality agenda that complement one another, that both are needed to gain a more complete picture of policy development. At the same time to use the two approaches in conjunction with each other in order to interpret the policy making process gives each of them a greater reality. To focus exclusively upon the politics of change is to lose sight of the meaning of the policy agenda. To approach the analysis of policy from © 2008 The Authors. Journal compilation © 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

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the social philosophical perspective demands a clear focus upon the policy goals; what they are, what are their origins, what value tensions they incorporate and what they are meant to achieve. Sooner or later there has to be a policy process and politics has a way of shifting the balance (almost inevitably) to the ‘what is’, ‘the descriptive’, ‘the empirical’ and ‘the sociological’: to impose a ‘reality check’. This article has argued that in interpreting the development of the quality agenda the different disciplinary standpoints both complement and enhance one another and thus aid our understanding of the process of change. In this sense there is disciplinary interaction. Whether it is possible to tease out their relative impact, to make a persuasive claim for the power of ideas is another matter. While ideas are integral to the process of policy change it is impossible to discern precisely how the evolving interpretations of quality have impacted upon the political struggles.We saw policy change as essentially driven by competing interests in higher education constructing agreements with a fragmented state apparatus on the basis of arriving at mutually acceptable policy goals. To discern what independent impact, if any, the different interpretations of quality have exerted upon policy change is the task that awaits us. For the moment a softer understanding of interaction must suffice. Conclusion The key shift post-1997 in the quality régime was the government’s willingness to accept institutional audit, rather than departmental inspection and assessment, as constituting an acceptable quality assurance régime. In effect, the government was prepared to adopt an interpretation of its statutory obligations that previously had not been on offer. This is to interpret the demise of the established regulatory framework as the consequence of a highly convenient political fix. It was important for the government to sustain a creditable interpretation of its statutory obligations while at the same time placating the increasing hostility of important interests within the higher education lobby. A new consensus was established which the various interests could at least live with, if not embrace. Moreover, the model was reinforced by the fact that there were broadly parallel developments in Scotland and Wales as well as England. Although the policy agenda evolved in response to political developments, it is critical to realise that this also incorporated a very important parallel shift in the understanding of what quality actually means, that is the move to embrace quality enhancement. The article turned to social © 2008 The Authors. Journal compilation © 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.


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philosophy, illustrated by interview data, in order to tease out some of the inherent tensions within and between the key quality concepts. Above all, it will be important to look out for the tensions induced by the need to institutionalise quality enhancement, and more particularly the possible colonisation of the concept by the QAA working in harmony with the HEA. The analysis, therefore, has moved, at least tentatively, in an interdisciplinary direction in order to create a fuller understanding of the quality debate in England. However, that debate has reached a critical stage as the idea of quality enhancement takes root and is given institutional support. In the struggles that will unfold, some interests will inevitably be more potent than others and some ideas will be given greater credence. The article has relied on social philosophy to guide the analysis of those ideas, and political science to explain the policy outcomes – and together to enhance greater understanding. Thus the process of change is subtler than a simple political fix. Notes 1. Formerly the Coalition of Modern Universities, 1997–2004; Campaign for Mainstream Universities 2004–2007. 2. Unless stated otherwise, the quotes in this and the next section of the paper are from interviews that Filippakou has conducted for her doctoral thesis: ‘The Legitimation of Quality in Higher Education’, Institute of Education, University of London.

References Barnett, R. (1994) The Limits of Competence. Buckingham: Open University Press/SRHE. Baty, P. (2003) ‘Watchdog Mauls LBS and Cambridge Quality’. Times Higher Education Supplement, October 24, p. 56. Bleiklie, I. (1998) Justifying the Evaluative State: New Public Management Ideals in Higher Education. European Journal of Education, 33 (3), pp. 299–316. Brown, R. (1997) If at First You Don’t Succeed . . . Creating a Single System of External Quality Assurance in UK Higher Education. Inaugural Professorial Lecture, Institute of Education, University of London, February 11. Brown, R. (1998) The Post-Dearing Agenda for Quality and Standards in Higher Education. Perspectives on Education Policy No.2. London: Institute of Education, University of London. Brown, R. (2004) Quality Assurance in Higher Education: the UK Experience since 1992. London: Routledge/Falmer Press. Department for Education (DfE) (1993) Higher Education Funding for 1993–94 to 1995–96. London: Department for Education. Department for Education and Employment (DfEE) (1995) Higher Education Funding for 1996–97 to 1998–99. London: Department for Education and Employment. Department for Education and Employment (DfEE) (1997) Higher Education Funding for 1997–98 to 1999–2000. London: Department for Education and Employment. Filippakou, O. (Forthcoming) The Legitimation of Quality in Higher Education. Doctoral dissertation, Institute of Education, University of London. © 2008 The Authors. Journal compilation © 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

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Filippakou, O. and Barnett, R. (2006) The Legitimisation of Quality in Higher Education. PROSPERO, 12 (4), pp. 13–19. Filippakou, O. and Tapper, T. (2007) Quality Assurance in Higher Education: Thinking Beyond the English Experience. Higher Education Policy, 20, pp. 339–360. Further and Higher Education Act (1992). Harvey, L. (2005) A History and Critique of Quality Evaluation in the UK. Quality Assurance in Education, 13, pp. 263–276. Harvey, L. and Newton, J. (2004) Transforming Quality Evaluation. Quality in Higher Education, 10, pp. 149–165. Higher Education Academy (HEA) (2007) Strategic Plan, 2005–2010. York: HEA. Kress, G. and van Leeuwen, T. (2001) Multimodal Discourse: the Modes and Media of Contemporary Communication. London: Arnold. Leisyte, L. (2005) The Struggle of the University Continues: Shifts in Governance and New Public Management in Higher Education. SRHE: International News, (57, Summer), pp. 5–8. Macleod, D. (2001) ‘Trial by Ordeal’. The Guardian, January 30. National Committee of Inquiry into Higher Education (NCIHE) (1997) Higher Education in the Learning Society. Dearing Report, Summary. Norwich: HMSO. QAA (2006) Review of the Quality Assurance Framework. Bristol: HEFCE. Salter, B. and Tapper, T. (2000) The Politics of Governance in Higher Education. Political Studies, 48, pp. 66–87. Tapper, T. (2007) The Governance of British Higher Education: the Struggle for Policy Control. Dordrecht: Springer. Tysome, T. (1998) Quality Lockout. Times Higher Education Supplement, July 10, p. 2. Tysome, T. (2003) ‘Cambridge in QAA Firing Line’. Times Higher Education Supplement, September 12, p. 9. Watson, D. (2005) A Whitehall Turf War. Higher Education Review, 37 (2), pp. 69–73. Williams, P. (2005) ‘Make no Mistake the QAA will tell it like it is’. Times Higher Education Supplement, September 30, p. 14.



University Patenting in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland: a Comparative Analysis Andrew Beale, David Blackaby and Lynn Mainwaring, Swansea University

Abstract Using data on the patent portfolios of UK universities, the paper compares the levels of patenting activity (filings), success (grants) and quality (patents with commercial co-assignees and patent citations) atWelsh, Scottish and Northern Irish institutions. Patent activity, per researcher, inWales is on a par with that in Scotland and about twice the rate in Northern Ireland, but the numbers of researchers relative to population in Wales and Northern Ireland are around half of the number in Scotland. Patent quality indicators are less favourable to Wales, while both activity levels and conversion of applications into grants are poor in Northern Ireland. It is suggested that greater cross-university collaboration in Wales and Northern Ireland would help improve performance.

Introduction The creation of knowledge-rich economies is a global phenomenon impelled, in part, by the continued liberalisation of world trade, and reinforced and rewarded by the strengthening of world law in intellectual property rights. In many countries, universities have been recognised as important repositories and generators of knowledge of commercial value and their research ‘missions’ have been extended beyond the creation of outputs as freely available public goods. The new technologies and new ideas that are transferred out of a university tend to have a disproportionate impact on the institution’s economic hinterland (Audretsch and Lehmann, 2005). Thus both national and regional governments and agencies have assumed an interest in the stimulation and transfer of commercially valuable university research. © 2008 The Authors. Journal compilation © 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford, OX4, 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA.

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This paper reports unique data that provide insights into the comparative extent and effectiveness of university patenting in three UK regions/nations: Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. These regions are of interest in themselves because they are three distinct elements of the UK devolutionary settlement (Cooke and Clifton, 2005) following the establishment of the Scottish Parliament and Welsh Assembly in 1999 (devolution in Northern Ireland has been in flux over this period, for well known political reasons). Over the coming decades, observers will be able to assess the extent to which the differing degrees of political and economic autonomy and styles of government succeed in delivering improvements in the economic performance of these peripheral regions. Devolution is, however, imposed on different cultures and historical legacies, economic, political, legal and intellectual. So the gathering of baseline data is critical to the running of this natural experiment. The core of the paper consists of increasingly refined patent productivity comparisons for individual institutions – refined in the sense that the measures more effectively capture innovations of commercial value. The measures are, respectively: patent filings, patent grants, patents having a commercial co-assignee, and patent citations. A brief attempt is made in the final section to place the main findings into a broader context. From a regional perspective, the significance of university patent outputs is that they provide information on an important component of the region’s innovation system. An innovation system is the mix of formal and informal institutions and policies geared to the creation and exploitation of new knowledge, a concept widely applied at the regional level (Cooke, Heidenreich and Braczyk, 2004). Devolved government has allowed a degree of discretion in the development of the innovation systems in the three regions.They, nevertheless, remain nested within the national (UK) system and it will be useful to begin with an account of recent relevant policy developments at that level. University patenting: the policy framework In the UK, rights to intellectual property arising from university research were formerly granted to a government corporation, the British Technology Group, but were ceded to the universities themselves in 1983. Although this gave institutions greater freedom to develop intellectual property portfolios, it was not until the mid-1990s that patenting activity ‘took off’ (as measured by patent applications; Beale, 2005). In this respect, the UK has lagged a considerable way behind the USA. There, © 2008 The Authors. Journal compilation © 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

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universities have generated rapid growth in patents following the 1980 Bayh-Dole Act which allowed universities to patent findings that were generated from federally funded research ( Jaffe, 2000). Concerns about the potential conflicts between commercialisation and the traditional missions of universities (see, e.g., Owen-Smith and Powell, 2001; Poyago-Theotoky, Beath and Siegel, 2002; Stephan et al., 2007) have been common to both countries and it is more likely that the tardy UK response has been the result of weaker incentives for academic staff to become involved in commercial activity. That, at least, seems to be one of the basic premises of a series of recent policy reviews on university business links. A report on the commercialisation of public-sector science (National Audit Office (NAO), 2002, pp. 22) noted that ‘insufficient “kudos” attaches to filing a patent’, and accordingly recommended the strengthening of incentives. Building on the Baker Report (HM Treasury, 1999), it advocated that research establishments (either the discipline-based Research Councils or those, primarily universities, in receipt of research council funding) should aim to develop, either individually or in collaboration, a critical mass of intellectual property so as ‘to take advantage of the incremental nature of most research’ (NAO, 2002, pp. 28). The Report’s plea for stronger incentives was answered in the Science and Innovation Framework, 2004–2014 (HM Treasury, 2004), which led to the Higher Education Innovation Fund for England and Northern Ireland, accompanied by a similar boosting of third-mission funding in Scotland and Wales. Of course, the creation and exploitation of intellectual property is not the only avenue for university business technology transfer. Student sponsorships, research contracts and consultancy, and business spinouts are alternatives. Nevertheless, official reports put considerable emphasis on intellectual property. The Lambert Review of businessuniversity collaboration (HM Treasury, 2003) questioned the quality, longevity and employment-generating potential of university spin-outs and recommended greater emphasis on licensing as a means of commercialisation. This stress on intellectual property has not been uncontroversial. In their overview of European university patenting, Guena and Nesta (2006) single out the NAO (2002) report for its uncritical advocacy of the intellectual property route. They argue that patent success is highly skewed, thanks to a small number of very successful patents, and that most university technology transfer offices in the USA and Europe earn little or no income from the sale or licensing of intellectual property.The © 2008 The Authors. Journal compilation © 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

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uneven commercial success of patents was, though, one of the reasons why the NAO report recommended the creation of institutional portfolios of sufficient mass. As for the overall returns to intellectual property, the Higher Education-Business and Community Interaction Survey, 2004– 2006 (Higher Education Funding Councils, 2007) reports that between 2000–2001 and 2005–2006, aggregate annual revenues of UK universities varied between £40 and £58 million, compared to costs of between £13 and £17 million. A breakdown by standard statistical region for 2005–2006 shows revenues exceeding costs for Wales and Scotland and for all but one English region (the North East). For Northern Ireland, however, revenues were considerably less than costs. The implication is that potential rewards are available from patent assets but thought needs to be given to their effective management; in particular, applications need to be pursued on a carefully selected basis. Thus, without denying the importance of other forms of technology transfer, a comparative analysis of university patent holdings is of interest, not only to individual universities as a means of benchmarking performance, but also to regional governments aiming to exploit university generated knowledge as part of their knowledge-economy and science policy strategies. These strategies, following UK policy imperatives all stress the importance of university technology commercialisation (see, e.g., Scottish Executive, 2001a, b; Welsh Assembly Government, 2004, 2006; Hewitt-Dundas, Roper and Love 2007).

The data The Higher Education-Business and Community Interaction Surveys contain aggregated data on universities’ self-reported intellectual property holdings from 2000–2001. The data presented in this paper come from a different source. They were commissioned from MicroPatent Professional Services by IP Wales, a Welsh Assembly Government business-support initiative (Beale, 2005).The data relate to patent filings and patent grants in the years 1983–2005 for all higher education institutions in Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland and for all (16) English members of the self-selected ‘Russell Group’ of leading research universities. For the purposes of this paper, these English universities are generally excluded since they are not representative of overall university performance in England (though occasional benchmark comparisons are made to the 15 of these having science and technology faculties). Universities in the Republic of Ireland are also © 2008 The Authors. Journal compilation © 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.


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generally excluded from detailed consideration because other aspects of the comparison (notably staff counts) are not obtainable on a consistent basis. Unlike the patent information published by the Higher Education Funding Councils (2007), the present data are reported for individual institutions, with separate counts for the five main national and international patent offices. Patents with commercial co-assignees are individually identified, and supplementary information is provided on patent classes and citation rates. The five offices are: Europe (EPO), Great Britain (UKPO), Japan (JPO), United States (USPTO) and the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) via the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT). Patent applications were not separately published by USPTO prior to 2000; thus for 1983–1999 only patent grants are counted. It is perfectly possible to apply for a patent in individual countries other than those stated but such applications are excluded from the data. However, patents granted by EPO, JPO, USPTO and via the PCT are generally regarded as high-value patents. Publication of documents typically lags behind filings by 18 months and, for this reason, the data, which were collected in 2005, are incomplete for the period 2003–2005. It has been claimed (e.g., Saragossi and van Pottelsberghe de la Potterie, 2003) that university patent holdings underestimate the number of patented inventions generated by universities. The university portfolios in Beale (2005) were assembled by including documents on which the institutions were named as an assignee (owner) or co-assignee and documents that, regardless of the assignee name, were ‘family members’ of the university assigned documents. In principle, a family consists of a priority application (the first application to be filed) and subsequent applications in different patent offices on the same invention (citing the priority). However, as Dernis, Guellec and van Pottelsberghe (2001) explain, matters can be rather complicated in reality, with applications citing multiple priorities or different applications citing the same priority, both suggestive of a degree of ‘downstream’ development of the original invention.The definition used here is due to International Patent Documentation Center (a database now maintained by EPO), in which all patents with common priorities are regarded as belonging to a single family. When a document within a family was not assigned to a university, its probable institutional source was inferred by examining the rest of the family members. Family expansion increased institutional patent attributions by 23 per cent, going some way towards meeting the concerns of Saragossi and van Pottelsberghe de la Potterie (2003). © 2008 The Authors. Journal compilation © 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

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Patents are a measure of technology outputs. To compare productivity, an input measure is needed. This is taken to consist of counts of academic staff in schools/departments in the sciences and engineering in the research-oriented ‘pre-1992’ universities, that is, those institutions in possession of a university charter before the abolition of the ‘binary divide’ in 1992 which allowed polytechnics to claim university status. These counts are obtained from submissions to the 2001 Research Assessment Exercise (Higher Education Research Opportunities, 2002; the Research Assessment Exercise is undertaken at 5–7 year intervals as a means of informing the distribution of public research funds to universities). The pre-1992 universities all have an explicit research mission and submit returns in all, or nearly all, relevant Research Assessment Exercise ‘units of assessment’, or disciplines. This is not true of most of the post-1992 universities, or former polytechnics, whose comparatively weak research capabilities lead them to concentrate submissions in the few areas where they hope to make an impact. Thus, entire schools/departments may fail to leave any trace in the Research Assessment Exercise returns. Aggregate regional outputs, but not inputs, of post-1992 universities and other higher education institutions are reported below. Of the 68 units of assessment, 27 are considered here to qualify as science and engineering and, therefore, to be patent-relevant. One of the problems of using the Research Assessment Exercise is that only the staff deemed to be ‘research active’ is submitted. For the purpose of evaluating university patent productivity it is preferable to include all staff (in fact, even the many Research Assessment Exercise rankings published in the UK education media are adjusted for the proportion of staff submitted). The returns do not give the exact proportion of research active to total staff but do give proportions within (six) bands. By using the midpoints of these bands, the reported numbers can be scaled up to yield an estimate of the total staff complement for each unit of assessment for each institution.These estimates are reported in Table 1 for Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland on an absolute and per capita basis (using the 2001 Census of Population). These estimates are of interest in their own right as indicators of the university based innovative potential in each region and, in that respect, Table 1 tells a striking story. The number of academic staff based in the science and engineering departments of pre-1992 universities relative to population is nearly twice as high in Scotland as it is inWales and Northern Ireland. When adjusted for quality (by weighting staff according to the appropriate Research Assessment Exercise ranking) there is a marginal change – in Scotland’s favour: research mass there is over twice as high as © 2008 The Authors. Journal compilation © 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.


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TABLE 1 University research staff numbers

Wales Scotland Northern Ireland

All staffa

All staff per capita

Research massb

Research mass per capita

932 3,146 660

0.32 0.62 0.39

562.4 2045.1 337.1

0.19 0.40 0.20

Note: Per capita figures derived using 2001 Census of Population. a Estimate of all pre-1992 university staff in 27 Research Assessment Exercise units of assessment. b Research-active staff of pre-1992 universities in 27 Research Assessment Exercise units of assessment weighted on a scale 0, . . . , 6.

it is in Wales.Whatever the patent productivity measures show, the fact is that Welsh universities have been attempting to compete on the basis of half the resources of Scotland.This picture is unlikely to be distorted as a result of the exclusion of the post-1992 universities, as is implied by the fact that these institutions account for 8.5 per cent of Scottish patent filings compared to 4.5 per cent for Wales and zero for Northern Ireland. Patent filings For Scotland, there is considerable variation in filings productivity, with Strathclyde, at 1.1 filings per member, markedly ahead of the other institutions (Table 2). Unlike Aberdeen, Dundee, Edinburgh and Glasgow, Strathclyde does not have a medical school but it does have a pharmacy department (for comparison, filings per member of the English Russell Group universities is 0.59).There is a substantial difference in the performances of Scotland’s two Russell Group members, Edinburgh and Glasgow. Edinburgh, which has Scotland’s largest concentration of science and engineering academics, has a filings productivity barely above that of the two smallest groupings (among pre-1992 universities), St. Andrews and Stirling. Among the new institutions, Glasgow Caledonian and Napier College accounted for 65 of the 129 filings. Only 1 per cent of applications were filed in Japan and only 10 per cent at UKPO (presumably because UK protection can also be had via EPO and WIPO). For Wales, there is a clear-cut difference between Cardiff University (including, for our purposes, the University of Wales College of Medicine with which it is now merged) and the other three pre-1992 universities. Cardiff accounted for 375 (74 per cent) of the 507 filings from Welsh institutions and has a productivity rate twice as high as its neighbours. In post-1992 institutions, 22 of the 27 filings by came from Glamorgan © 2008 The Authors. Journal compilation © 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

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TABLE 2 Patent filings and filings productivity per member of staff by patent office (PO), 1983–2005 Institutiona

Staffb EPO

UKPO JPO USPTO WIPO All

Scotland Aberdeen 321 52 15 Dundee 350 75 19 Edinburgh 917 43 13 Glasgow 683 96 28 Ht-Watt 300 19 13 St. Andrews 146 3 1 Stirling 90 2 1 Strathclyde 339 117 29 Total 3,146 417 119 (pre-1992) Post-1992 33 26 Total (All) 440 145 PO shares 29% 10% Wales A’ystwyth Bangor Cardiff Swansea Total (pre-1992) Post-1992 Total (All) PO shares

109 9 128 11 557 97 138 9 932 126

Northern Ireland Belfast 473 Ulster 187 Total (All) 660 PO shares

0 4 1 5 2 1 0 6 19

38 53 39 89 13 1 0 94 327

0 21 19 348 1% 23%

10 1 60 9 80

0 0 5 0 5

5 5 86 4 100

7 133 26%

7 87 17%

1 6 6 106 1% 21%

42 13 55 31%

11 1 12 7%

0 0 0 0%

34 8 42 23%

73 105 66 110 22 2 2 129 509 49 558 37%

178 256 162 328 69 8 5 375 1,381

0.56 0.73 0.18 0.48 0.23 0.06 0.06 1.11 0.44

129 1510 100%

14 15 127 13 169

38 32 375 35 480

6 175 36%

27 507 100%

51 19 70 39%

All/Staff

0.35 0.25 0.67 0.25 0.52

138 0.29 41 0.22 179 0.27 100%

a

Patent filings are reported, individually for pre-1992 universities and collectively for post-1992 universities and other higher education institutions. b Staff numbers in the relevant Research Assessment Exercise units of assessment (pre1992 universities, only). EPO, Europe; UKPO, Great Britain; JPO, Japan; USPTO, United States; WIPO, World Intellectual Property Organisation; PO.

University. Thanks to Cardiff, Wales’s overall old-university productivity exceeds that of Scotland: 0.52 per member compared to 0.44. The distribution of patent office applications is broadly similar to that of Scotland except for a greater concentration in UKPO, possibly reflecting less confidence in the global value of the innovations. © 2008 The Authors. Journal compilation © 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.


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TABLE 3 The distribution of patent filings by international patent class Patent class

A61 Medical science C07 Organic Chemistry C12 Microbiology G01 Measuring, testing G02 Optics G06 Computing H01 Electrical H04 Telecomms. All other classes

% of all filingsa

Filings per researcher Wales

Scotland

Englandb

22.2 9.5 16.4 13.7 3.0 3.7 5.4 2.4 23.7

0.099 0.071 0.107 0.091 0.003 0.014 0.008 0.001 0.150

0.108 0.038 0.070 0.086 0.013 0.017 0.031 0.018 0.099

0.132 0.056 0.098 0.073 0.019 0.023 0.032 0.013 0.141

a

Per cent of filings for Welsh, Scottish and English Russell Group universities. Figures for Northern Irish universities are not separately available. b Russell Group universities only.

For Northern Ireland, there is little difference between Belfast and Ulster, except for scale. The overall rate of 0.27 filings per member is comparatively low. There is also a greater propensity to use multicountry routes (EPO and WIPO). For two of the regions, Wales and Scotland, information is also available, at the regional level, on the types of invention that are being patented. As a route to commercialisation, patents are particularly favoured in the medical sciences and especially pharmaceuticals. Scotland is well endowed with medical schools and pharmacy departments whereas (at the time the data were collected) Wales had just one of each (both at Cardiff). Interestingly, this does not seem to be reflected by the distribution of patents across the International Patent Classification class levels. Of the 110 classes, eight account for over three quarters of the filings in the dataset (Table 3). While Wales trails Scotland and England in filings per researcher in class A61, which includes pharmaceuticals, it performs well in organic chemistry (C07) and biochemistry (C12, which includes genetic engineering). In relative terms,Wales’s weakness is most pronounced in sections G and H, electronics and communications. Patent grants Patent filings may be a useful measure of the level of commercially oriented research activity, but their utility as a measure of the value of outcomes of that activity is compromised by the fact that application © 2008 The Authors. Journal compilation © 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

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success rates may vary from institution to institution. The data provide some insights into these variations. For EPO, it is possible to compare filings over the period 1983–2005 with the number of grants. This is not the same as showing how many applications over that period went on to be granted since recent applications may be granted after 2005. Nevertheless, given the length of the period, the ‘issuance ratio’ (the ratio of patents granted to applications not granted) gives a good indicator of overall success (Table 4).The same can be done for US data but only for the years 2000–2005, the shorter period giving a less robust measure of success. For some institutions, the small numbers involved suggest that the issuance rates should be treated with caution. Among the more active institutions, Strathclyde again stands out. Not only does it have the highest filings rate but it also (on the basis of EPO and USPTO data) has the highest issuance rates. The overall rates for Wales and Scotland are similar, though those for Northern Ireland are markedly lower. It is interesting that issuance rates are higher for US applications than those for EPO, suggesting either that US criteria are easier to satisfy, or that they are subject to shorter lags, or both. The ranking of institutions based on the total number of patents at EPO and USPTO for 1983–2005 and the corresponding (granted) patent productivity rate is close to that based on filings productivity; suggesting that, as cross section data, filings may not, in fact, be a poor measure of outcomes (Table 5). This may not be true over time, as universities become more experienced and more selective about what inventions to patent. (For comparison, the productivity rate for the elite English universities is 0.14.) Patent collaboration Universities can develop patents on their own, in collaboration with industrial partners, or in collaboration with other universities and public research bodies. Evidence from Belgian universities (Sapsalis and van Pottelsberghe, 2007) suggests that having a commercial co-assignee has a weakly significant positive effect on patent value, while co-assignment with other universities and public research organisations has a strongly significant positive effect. The present data show considerably more instances of commercial (compared to intra-university) collaboration and these are discussed first. Commercial cooperation in patent activity was low in the early years for most institutions (Table 6; and the data for 1983–1992 are compacted in the table) but has grown steadily on average since then. © 2008 The Authors. Journal compilation © 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.


4 7 65 5 5 86

30 10 40

Wales Aberystwyth Bangor Cardiff Swansea Post-1992 Total

Northern Ireland Belfast Ulster Total

EPO, Europe; USPTO, United States.

36 54 31 72 14 3 2 56 23 291

Scotland Aberdeen Dundee Edinburgh Glasgow Heriot-Watt St. Andrews Stirling Strathclyde Post-1992 Total

12 3 15

5 4 32 4 2 47

16 21 12 24 5 0 0 61 10 149

0.4 0.3 0.4

1.3 0.6 0.5 0.8 0.4 0.5

0.4 0.4 0.4 0.3 0.4 0.0 0.0 1.1 0.4 0.5

17 6 23

1 3 25 2 1 32

16 22 17 30 3 0 0 17 11 116

Applications

Applications/ Patents

Applications

Patents

USPTO

EPO

7 1 8

1 2 21 0 1 25

11 15 10 31 5 0 0 27 6 105

Patents

TABLE 4 Issuance rates for applications to EPO (1983–2005) and USPTO (2000–2005)

0.4 0.2 0.3

1.0 0.7 0.8 0.0 1.0 0.8

0.7 0.7 0.6 1.0 1.7 – – 1.6 0.5 0.9

Applications/ Patents

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TABLE 5 European and US patents (1983–2005) and patent productivity Total patent grants

Patents/Staff

Scotland Aberdeen Dundee Edinburgh Glasgow Heriot-Watt St Andrews Stirling Strathclyde Total (pre-1992) Post-1992 Total all

38 52 34 83 15 0 0 138 360 21 381

0.12 0.15 0.04 0.12 0.05 0.0 0.0 0.41 0.11

Wales Aberystwyth Bangor Cardiff Swansea Total (pre-1992) Post-1992 Total all

9 6 93 6 114 7 121

0.08 0.05 0.17 0.04 0.12

Northern Ireland Belfast Ulster Total

29 5 34

0.06 0.03 0.05

Table 6 attributes to each institution patents with commercial assignees and co-assignees that have been identified according to the patent-family definition, and illustrates how performances have changed over time.The average, however, conceals idiosyncratic patterns for a few institutions, casting fresh light on the outcomes related above.The last three columns of Table 6 show: the total count for the entire period; the count for the period end (2000–2005); and the ratio of end count to total count. The ratio gives a rough indication of whether or not institutional activity is accelerating or declining relative to other institutions. Perhaps the most surprising results are those for Strathclyde. It was noted above that this university has high total filings and high EPO/USPTO patent grants; in both cases higher than Glasgow. Yet, as reported in Table 6, its portfolio of patents with commercial co-assignees, for the entire period, is somewhat smaller than that of © 2008 The Authors. Journal compilation © 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.


4

8

2 3 5

Belfast Ulster Northern Ireland

4

4

16

4

6

3 3

98

5

5

3 1 7

2

2

99

1

7

7

10

1 5 1 1

2

97

1

5

5

7

1 1 1 3 1

96

1

5

5

1 1 6

1 1 1 1

95

1

1

(a) total count for the period 1983–2005. (b) total count for the period 2000–2005.

4

1

14

3

2

2 3 1 1 1 6

94

1

7 1

4 3 5 1 15

2

93

Aberystwyth Bangor Cardiff Swansea Post-1992 Wales

Aberdeen Dundee Edinburgh Glasgow Heriot-Watt Strathclyde Post-1992 Scotland

83–92

1

1

5

2 3

15

1 3 4 2 4 1

00

3 1 4

2

1 1

1 1 14

2 3 3 4

01

4 1 5

2

1 1

1 2 2 1 1 4 9

02

4

4

4

3

1

2 4 7 1 3 4 21

03

4

4

1 4

3

5 14

4 1

4

04

1

1

05

TABLE 6 Patents with commercial co-assignees, 1983–2005

20 5 25

2 7 45 1 1 56

13 25 17 41 13 29 17 155

83–05 (a)

16 2 18

2 7 7 0 1 17

3 13 13 19 7 7 14 76

00–05 (b)

0.8 0.4 0.76

1.0 1.0 0.16 0 1.0 0.3

0.23 0.52 0.76 0.46 0.54 0.24 0.82 0.49

a/b

University Patenting 113

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Glasgow and Cardiff and only a little larger than that of Dundee. Yet more remarkable is that most of Strathclyde’s documents refer to years prior to 2000; only 24 per cent are post-2000 (about half the Scottish average). Note also that the previous ranking of Edinburgh and Glasgow is reversed when it comes to the end count: total count ratio. Three quarters of Edinburgh’s patents with commercial co-assignees are post-2000 compared to fewer than half for Glasgow. The late starters catching up is also evident from the results for the post-1992 Scottish institutions, for which 82 per cent of such patents relate to the last 5 years. Cardiff, like Strathclyde, also seems to have stalled drastically. Over the entire period, Cardiff outperforms all other institutions (Table 6).Yet only seven of its 45 documents relate to the end period. It might be thought that the fall off in commercial collaboration at Cardiff, Strathclyde (and also Aberdeen) reflects a change in commercialisation strategy but, if so, it goes very much against the trend of the leading UK research universities. The end count: total count ratio for the English Russell group, as a whole is 0.63, while that for the three leading UK science and technology universities (Oxford, Cambridge and Imperial College) is 0.76. The figures for Northern Ireland are dominated by Belfast which has much in common with Edinburgh and the post-1992 Scottish institutions and is pretty much a mirror image of Cardiff: 80 per cent of its patent attributions are from the end period. For the last 5 years the total count for the region exceeded that of Wales. Insofar as any slowing down of commercial collaboration in patenting is a problem, it is clearly more of a concern for Wales.The fall in Cardiff’s numbers has not been made good by the remaining universities.To be on a par with Scotland in per capita terms, Welsh outputs need to be at least half of those for Scotland. Yet for this kind of patent, the ratio stands at about one third for the entire period and around a quarter for the last 5 years. When it comes to collaboration with other universities, a similar picture emerges. The patent filings documents reveal 10 instances of co-assignment between universities in Scotland and 34 between Scottish universities and English members of the Russell Group (including six with triple assignment). There were, by contrast, zero intra-Wales collaborations and only seven (all from Cardiff) with other Russell Group universities. For Northern Ireland, the corresponding figures are zero and two. There was no evidence of collaboration between universities in Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. © 2008 The Authors. Journal compilation © 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.


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Patent citation analysis When a patent or application is published it may serve as a reference for inventions that are subsequently filed by the same inventor or others. If an inventor or an examiner makes reference to an earlier patent document, some technical relationship is implied, but the nature of that relationship may vary. The earlier work may be similar or it may be a different solution to the problem that is addressed by the new application. If a patent has had a significant impact on a technical field, the number of times it is cited by others will tend to be higher. Selfcitation (by the inventor or assignee) implies continued research and development investment in the technical area. Citation by others implies some recognition of technical reliance on or advancement over the prior work. Naturally, one would expect citation frequency to increase with the age of the patent since the opportunity for citation increases with time. It is also the case that citation practices vary across patent offices, with much higher frequencies being recorded on USPTO documents. Since the percentages of filings in the USPTO are very similar for the three nations/regions (Table 2), this effect can be ignored. Citations data have been compiled for EPO, USPTO and WIPO documents as part of an analysis of the full set of documents including those of English Russell Group and Republic of Ireland universities. The mean citation rate for the entire collection is 0.25 citations per patent. A simple summary comparator is provided by the proportion of documents having citations in excess of two standard deviations above the mean. Scottish documents at 3 per cent are above the two standard deviation threshold compared to 4 per cent for Wales and 1 per cent for (All-) Ireland. If this seems good from a Welsh perspective, more troubling is that the citation frequency in that region has been consistently low from 2000 onwards. Although one expects lower average frequencies for newer documents, among the newer documents higher rates do predict innovations of emerging interest. What is apparent is that both Scottish and (All-) Irish universities are generating documents of emerging interest while Welsh universities are signally failing in that regard. Although mean citation rates for this restricted period are close to zero for all three regions, the two standard deviation markers are 3.9 for Scotland, 2.1 for Ireland and only 0.7 for Wales. This echoes the remarkable downturn, noted in Table 6, in patent families with commercial co-assignees at Cardiff compared with, say, Belfast and Edinburgh. © 2008 The Authors. Journal compilation © 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

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Implications and conclusions This paper’s focus on patents is not intended to deny the importance of other means of transferring ideas from universities or of obtaining revenue streams from business. Even so, the brief review of UK technology policy makes clear the importance central government places on commercialisation through the development of intellectual property rights, and this is echoed in the economic strategy and science policy documents of the devolved administrations. The significant differences to emerge from the data, at least between Scotland and Wales, relate not to the main quantity measures relative to the number of researchers (filings and grants) but to quality measures (gross numbers of patent collaborations, the growth of commercial collaborations, and recent citations) and they echo findings on patenting from industry itself. Moore and Mainwaring (2006) show that, in the production sector, Welsh firms are at least as likely to engage in patenting as their Scottish counterparts but are less likely to hold patent clusters that typically arise from innovation routes with ongoing potential. For Northern Ireland, not only are the quantity measures poor but the very low rate of conversion of applications into grants is a matter of particular concern (see also, Hewitt-Dundas, Roper and Love, 2007). Recall that Northern Ireland is one of the few UK regions not to profit from the commercialisation of university intellectual property. It is very likely that these poor returns to commercialisation are closely connected to failure to reach the grant stage, and implies a rather indiscriminate approach to application selection. There is some suggestion of recent growth in outputs at Belfast but, overall, the picture is discouraging. The quantity comparisons become less favourable to Wales and Northern Ireland when they are related to total population rather than researcher numbers and reflect a historical legacy of high investment in higher education in Scotland (relative to the whole of the UK). In this respect, Scotland has been favoured by the application, since 1979, of the Treasury’s ‘Barnett formula’ for allocating government expenditure to Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. According to Mackay (2006), Scotland receives 7 per cent more per capita than Wales, even though its gross value added per capita is 17 per cent higher. Northern Ireland’s even more favourable treatment is a result of its political ‘troubles’. The number of universities in Scotland also appears to help maintain stability in patenting performance, with emerging weaknesses in some institutions being offset by growing strengths in others. In Wales and Northern © 2008 The Authors. Journal compilation © 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.


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Ireland, the dominance of Cardiff and Belfast are potential sources of volatility. In assessing these findings for the three regions, it is important to take account of the different sizes of the regional economies and the number of universities they are host to. In relation to the first, university technology spillovers tend to be localised but transfer can only be effected if the local economy is capable of absorbing the inventions. It has been suggested (Hewitt-Dundas, Roper and Love, 2007) that business expenditure on research and development is a good proxy for the capacity to absorb university technology outputs. In 2004, business spending on research and development in Scotland was £494 million, over twice that in Wales (£226 million) and over four times that in Northern Ireland (£116 million; Statswales, 2007). A small private research base is unlikely to sustain sufficient mass in each of the disciplines offered by (even a small number of) universities to benefit from the inventions of those disciplines. On the other hand, where absorptive capacity is high, a larger university research base is beneficial in allowing the development of large, risk-spreading patent portfolios, as recommended by the NAO (2002). Indeed, that report suggests that institutions ‘may benefit from combining to create a significant body of intellectual property . . . in the same, or similar, market or geographical sectors’. Not only is this an option more readily available to universities in Scotland on account of the sheer size of its higher education sector, it is a route that they seem more eager to pursue, on the evidence of intra-university patent collaboration as well as other co-operative projects such as the web-portal ‘universitytechnology.com’ set up by all 13 universities to promote licensing opportunities. Scotland does, of course, have mature national institutions like the Royal Society of Edinburgh, to promote the interests of higher education and help cement cooperation, but it might have been thought that something similar would have happened in Wales as a result of universities’ membership of the federal University of Wales. However, even before the weakening of that body through the secession of Cardiff, it betrayed no willingness or ability to help formulate an all-Wales research strategy, let alone coordinate the development of multi-institution patent portfolios and promote collaborative commercialisation. Wales’s new science policy (Welsh Assembly Government, 2006) stresses the need for improved commercialisation of university research but offers little strategic insight into how this might be done. Given the relative smallness of its higher education sector and three of its four pre-1992 universities, © 2008 The Authors. Journal compilation © 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

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there is surely a case for adopting the NAO recommendation to create a combined body of intellectual property. For Northern Ireland, options have been more limited on account of its size and recent troubled history. It may now become possible for its universities to develop stronger collaborative links to their counterparts in the Republic and to take advantage of the recent rapid growth of the Irish economy. Acknowledgements We should like to thank Marc Clement, Iwan Davies, Peter Sloane and two anonymous referees for their useful comments, and Julie Allan who helped in the preparation of the data. References Audretsch, D. and Lehmann, E. (2005) Does the Knowledge Spillover Theory of Entrepreneurship Hold for Regions? Research Policy, 34 (8), pp. 1191–1202. Beale, A. (2005) A Study of Intellectual Property in UK HEIS with Emphasis onWales. Wales: IP Wales, School of Law, Swansea University. Cooke, P. and Clifton, N. (2005) Visionary, Precautionary and Constrained ‘Varieties of Devolution’ in the Economic Governance of the Devolved UK Territories. Regional Studies, 39 (4), pp. 421–436. Cooke, P., Heidenreich, M. and Braczyk, H.-J. (eds.) (2004) Regional Innovation Systems. London: Routledge. Dernis, H., Guellec, D. and van Pottelsberghe, B. (2001) ‘Using Patent Counts for Cross-Country Comparison of Technology Output’. OECD Science and Technology Indicators Review, 27, pp. 129–146. Guena, A. and Nesta, L. (2006) University patenting and Its Effects on Academic Research: The Emerging European Evidence. Research Policy, 35 (6), pp. 790–807. Hewitt-Dundas N., Roper S. and Love J. (2007) An Examination of Higher Education Research and Development and Knowledge Transfer in Northern Ireland. Belfast, Northern Ireland: Department for Employment and Learning. Higher Education Funding Councils (2007) Higher Education-Business Interaction Survey, 2004–05 and 2005–06. London: Higher Education Funding Council for England. Higher Education Research Opportunities (2002) The Research Assessment Exercise. http:// www.hero.ac.uk/rae/, last accessed 3 August 2006. HM Treasury (1999) The Baker Report: Creating Knowledge, Creating Wealth. London: The Stationary Office. HM Treasury (2003) The Lambert Review of Business-University Collaboration. London: The Stationary Office. HM Treasury (2004) Science and Innovation Framework 2004–2014. London: The Stationary Office. Jaffe, A. B. (2000) The US Patent System in Transition: Policy Innovation and the Innovation Process. Research Policy, 29 (4), pp. 531–557. Mackay, R. (2006) Identifying Need: Devolved Spending in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. Contemporary Wales, 18, pp. 236–255. Moore, N. J. and Mainwaring, L. (2006) Intellectual Property in the Welsh Production Sector. Contemporary Wales, 18, pp. 256–274. National Audit Office (NAO) (2002) Delivering the Commercialisation of Public Sector Science. London: The Stationary Office. © 2008 The Authors. Journal compilation © 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.


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Owen-Smith, J. and Powell, W. W. (2001) To Patent or Not: Faculty Decisions and Institutional Success at Technology Transfer. Journal of Technology Transfer, 26 (1), pp. 99–114. Poyago-Theotoky, J., Beath, J. and Siegel, D. (2002) Universities and Fundamental Research: Policy Implications of the Growth of University-Industry Partnerships. Oxford Review of Economic Policy, 18 (1), pp. 10–21. Sapsalis, E. and van Pottelsberghe, B. (2007) ‘The Institutional Sources of Knowledge and the Value of Academic Patents’. Economics of Innovation and New Technology, 16 (2), pp. 139–157. Saragossi, S. and van Pottelsberghe de la Potterie, B. (2003) ‘What Patent Data Reveal about Universities: The Case of Belgium’. Journal of Technology Transfer, 28 (1), pp. 47–51. Scottish Executive (2001a) A Science Strategy for Scotland. Edinburgh: Scottish Executive. Scottish Executive (2001b) A Smart Successful Scotland:Ambitions for the Enterprise Network. Edinburgh: Scottish Executive. Statswales (2007) Research and Development Expenditure by Region. http://www.statswales. wales.gov.uk/TableViewer/tableView.aspx?ReportId=1610, last accessed 8 August 2007. Stephan, P., Gurmu, S., Sumell, A. and Black, G. (2007) ‘Who’s Patenting in the University?’ Economics of Innovation and New Technology, 16 (2), pp. 71–99. Welsh Assembly Government (2004) Knowledge Economy Nexus:The Role of Higher Education in Wales. Cardiff: National Assembly for Wales. Welsh Assembly Government (2006) A Science Policy forWales. Cardiff: National Assembly for Wales.



On Structuring Subjective Judgements: originality, Significance and Rigour in RAE2008 Ron Johnston, School of Geographical Sciences, University of Bristol

Abstract The 2008 United Kingdom Research Assessment Exercise will involve the evaluation of thousands of individual research outputs.The Funding Councils set three criteria for those evaluations – Originality, rigour and significance – and required each output to be placed into a fivefold categorisation of excellence, using absolute rather than relative judgements. The various panels and sub-panels convened to undertake those evaluations were asked to provide their own interpretations of both the criteria and the categories.This paper analyses those, and finds that they are no less subjective than the generic descriptions provided by the central organisation. Introduction Academics are used to grading a wide range of materials, from student essays and examinations through research grant applications, potential journal articles and book manuscripts to the materials presented by candidates for appointments or promotions. Some of their judgements are binary: accept/reject; some involve relative judgements, placing candidates/materials in order of merit; and some involve absolute judgements, giving a grade or mark against agreed/predetermined standards or criteria. Most are subjective; the exceptions involve technical material for which there is either a right or a wrong answer. Even where so-called absolute standards are provided, nevertheless there are often no clear-cut criteria that allow an incontestable decision as to which grade is deserved. The decision makers very often operate with regard to identifying excellence as did US Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart, who could not define pornography but knew it when he saw it.1 © 2008 The Author. Journal compilation © 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford, OX4, 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA.

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Research Assessment Exercise (RAE) is one arena of academic judgement with far-reaching consequences that has attracted massive attention beyond as well as within the United Kingdom academic community over the last two decades, and which is dominated by the concept of excellence (Allan, 2006). Originally designed by members of the then academic-dominated University Grants Committee to respond to government ministers’ questions regarding the returns on investment in university research, it was (in the current context) initially a relative light-touch exercise that graded departments (or ‘units of assessment’ (UoAs)) in 1986 on a four-point scale. Differential funding for research (known as QR) in the universities followed these grades, with a relative shallow slope connecting the lowest to the highest graded UoAs. Across the next four exercises (1989, 1992, 1996 and 2001) the grading process became more intensive, the scale increasingly long, the amount of material presented became more extensive, and the commitment of resources became much greater (all part of what Howie (2006) calls ‘drowning by numbers’ for UK universities). Most importantly, the differential allocation of QR moneys became much greater; very large sums of money were at stake and much (including funding for posts and other infrastructural resources) depended on the grade achieved (details of the latest allocation formula can be viewed at http://www.hefce.ac.uk/research/funding/ qrfunding/). These exercises have received a very mixed response from the British academic community, with a variety of claims regarding their impact on research practice and also their ‘bias’ against disciplines involved in practice-based research, such as education and social policy/ administration (Furlong and Oancea, 2005). McNay (2003, p. 53) argues from an analysis of the 2001 exercise that ‘professional work in modern universities has been abandoned by the RAE’. Nevertheless, the concept of assessing the quality of research at universities as a means for both assuring value-for-money from public investment and allocating future funds to enhance that return has attracted wide international interest. The model has been adapted to local circumstances in several countries and more, such as Australia ( Johnston, 2006c), are in the process of introducing their own scheme. For example, Roberts (2003, p. 2), who advised the Australian government on that scheme, had previously claimed that: ‘All who examine the impact of the RAE upon UK research and its international reputation must, I think, agree that it has made us more focused, more self-critical and more respected across the world’ (for a review of the ‘internationalisation’ of the RAE see Geuna and Martin (2003) and McNay (2008); for discussions of the © 2008 The Author. Journal compilation © 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

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impact of RAEs in a single subject, see Castree et al. (2006)). As McNay (2007) has argued for UK social science, the outcome of these exercises has had a considerable impact on ‘decisions about what research to pursue and within what methodological paradigms’, with clear implications for researcher autonomy. Thus the methodology of the UK RAEs, and in particular the changes proposed for the 2008 exercise, have wide potential implications. One consistent element of the first five UK RAEs was that the allocated grades related to UoAs (in most cases separate university departments although universities are increasingly splitting departments, schools and their other academic units between several UoAs, reflecting tactical decisions on where particular types of research are likely to receive the best reception). Although the panels making the judgements used materials from and about individuals, the outcome was always a grading of a collective, not of an individual. Following a review chaired by Sir Gareth Roberts (2003), however, the 2008 RAE will differ from that procedure in one important respect. Although the results will still refer to a collective, the UoA, it will not be a single summative judgement but rather a profile reflecting the relevant panel’s views of the materials presented to them, in three main categories: research outputs, research environment and esteem indicators. Central to those profiles will be the ratings on a five-point scale given to each of up to four separate items submitted by each researcher entered in a UoA. Individuals’ work is thus explicitly to be graded. Furthermore, the gradings will be the dominant determinants of the final UoA profiles, to be produced by a series of 15 panels and 67 constituent sub-panels. Each panel (see Table 1 for a list) could determine the percentage weight it would give to the three categories evaluated: the recommended minimum for the outputs was 50 per cent, but most of the 15 panels decided on either 70 or 75, with panel G opting for 50 and panel N, 80 (panel E split on this issue with UoA 17 deciding to weight outputs at 65 per cent and UoAs 18–19 at 60; the latter two, along with panel G, also gave the highest weightings to esteem indicators, at 15, 20 and 30 per cent respectively, with all of the others allocating either 5 or 10). The assessed quality of the research outputs is clearly the determining factor on the overall profile, with major implications for research funding of universities over the following years. The RAE is a further example of academics being involved in making judgements of the quality of submitted work. Those judgements are supposedly made against absolute standards, but they will necessarily be subjective (as with all such exercises) and have to be made against stated, © 2008 The Author. Journal compilation © 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.


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TABLE 1 The panels and sub-panels Panel Sub-panels A B C D E F G

H I J K L M

N O

1. Cardiovascular medicine; 2. Cancer studies; 3. Infection and immunology; 4. Other hospital based clinical studies; 5. Other laboratory based clinical subjects. 6. Epidemiology and public health; 7. Health services research; 8. Primary care . . . ; 9. Psychiatry, neurology and clinical psychology. 10. Dentistry; 11. Nursing and midwifery; 12. Allied health professions; 13. Pharmacy. 14. Biological sciences; 15. Pre-clinical and human biological sciences; 16. Agriculture, veterinary and food sciences. 17. Earth systems and environmental sciences; 18. Chemistry; 19. Physics. 20. Pure mathematics; 21. Applied mathematics; 22. Statistics and operational research; 23. Computer science and informatics. 24. Electrical and electronic engineering; 25. General engineering and mining & metal engineering; 26. Chemical engineering; 27. Civil engineering; 28. Mechanical, aeronautical and manufacturing engineering; 29. Metallurgy and materials. 30. Architecture and the built environment; 31. Town and country planning; 32. Geography and environmental studies; 33. Archaeology. 34. Economics and econometrics; 35. Accounting and finance; 36. Business and management studies; 37. Library and information management. 38. Law; 39. Politics and international studies; 40. Social work and social policy & administration; 41. Sociology; 42. Anthropology; 43. Development studies. 44. Psychology; 45. Education; 46. Sports-related studies. 47. American studies and Anglophone area studies; 48. Middle Eastern and African studies; 49. Asian studies; 50. European studies. 51. Russian, Slavonic and East European languages; 52. French; 53. German, Dutch and Scandinavian languages; 54. Italian; 55. Iberian and Latin American languages; 56. Celtic studies; 57. English language and literature; 58. Linguistics. 59. Classics, ancient history, Byzantine and modern Greek studies; 60. Philosophy; 61. Theology, divinity and religious studies; 62. History. 63. Art and design; 64. History of art, architecture and design; 65. Drama, dance and performing arts; 66. Communication, cultural and media studies; 67. Music.

if not defined, criteria set out by the funding councils that organise the RAEs (the four councils responsible for funding UK higher education combine to conduct the RAEs, which are managed from the offices of the Higher Education Funding Council for England). Their subjectivity © 2008 The Author. Journal compilation © 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

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is recognised in that each main panel and sub-panel involved in the RAE2008 judgement process has been required to set out its own definitions in the light of the generic criteria. This essay evaluates those definitions to see what light they throw on academics’ criteria for determining what constitutes world-class research.

Setting the stage The 15 main panels, whose role is to ensure consistency of decision making across a group of related disciplines, and their 67 sub-panels have memberships dominated by practicing academics, alongside research-user representatives and overseas assessors. Their task with regard to the assessment of each submitted piece of output (which need not be a publication, though most undoubtedly will be: other categories of output acceptable include images, devices, patents and software) is set out in an introductory document: This is an expert review exercise. Sub-panel members will exercise their knowledge, judgement and expertise to reach a collective view on the quality profile of research described in each submission, that is the proportion of work in each submission that is judged to reach each of five quality levels from 4* to unclassified (see Annex A [this is published here as Table 2]). The definition of each level relies on a conception of quality (world-leading), which is the absolute standard of quality in each UoA. Each submission will be assessed against absolute standards and will not be ranked against other submissions. (RAE2008, 2005, para. 26)

TABLE 2 Definitions of quality levels Four star Three star Two star One star Unclassified

Quality that is world leading in terms of originality, significance and rigour. Quality that is internationally excellent in terms of originality, significance and rigour but which nonetheless falls short of the highest standards of excellence. Quality that is recognised internationally in terms of originality, significance and rigour. Quality that is recognised nationally in terms of originality, significance and rigour. Quality that falls below the standard of nationally recognised work. Or work which does not meet the published definition of research for the purposes of this assessment.

Source: RAE2008 (2005), Table 2, p. 25. © 2008 The Author. Journal compilation © 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.


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The grade descriptions reproduced here in Table 2 (and based on those used at the 2001 RAE; see Roberts (2003), Appendix C) are further elaborated in a series of paragraphs: 1. Sub-panels will use their professional judgement to form a view about the quality profile of the research activity described in each submission, taking into account all the evidence presented.Their recommendations will be endorsed by the main panel in consultation with the sub-panel. 2. ‘World-leading’ quality denotes an absolute standard of quality in each unit of assessment. 3. ‘World leading’, ‘internationally’ and ‘nationally’ in this context refer to quality standards. They do not refer to the nature or geographical scope of particular subjects, nor to the locus of research nor its place of dissemination, for example, in the case of ‘nationally’, to work that is disseminated in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. It was, however, left to the panels and sub-panels, if they wished, to refine the key terms in those definitions: world-leading, internationally excellent, recognised internationally, and recognised nationally; as well as the criteria of originality, significance and rigour. Their refined definitions were published by the panels and sub-panels and formed the criteria against which their judgements will be made. Have we any models to deploy? While the RAE may be relatively novel, nevertheless there has been a great deal of academic study of disciplinary histories, which should provide some pointers as to what work might be considered worldleading, internationally excellent, and so on. Of those, undoubtedly the most influential and the most cited (itself a measure of worldleadingness?) is Thomas Kuhn’s (1962 (1970)) ‘The Structure of Scientific Revolutions’. Kuhn divided scientific activity into two main types: normal science which, as the name suggests, predominates; and extraordinary, or revolutionary, science. Normal science involves the adoption and application of a paradigm, his descriptive term for a community of workers who operate within an agreed philosophy, concur on the theoretical focus of their work, and use accepted methodological procedures. Once socialised into a paradigm, members of that community are aware of what it accepts as (albeit provisional) knowledge (the ‘known knowns’), what © 2008 The Author. Journal compilation © 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

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problems are unresolved (the ‘known unknowns’), and what methods are available for tackling those problems. The paradigm is thus an ‘accepted problem-solution’ framework (Barnes, 1982, p. xiv) and provides the context for normal science. Researchers operate within this framework, tackling problems sequentially and adding to the store of knowledge as they resolve them. Such resolutions may not be straightforward and may call for substantial perseverance, skill and ingenuity but they only advance knowledge within an agreed framework by, as Newton’s muchquoted phrase indicates, ‘standing on the shoulders of giants’. Normal scientific practice thus involves the continued application and extension of accepted methods within an agreed theoretical context: researchers move the agreed agenda forward, some more successfully than others, some making more substantial contributions than others (Barnes 1982, p. 49) calls what normal scientists do ‘filling in the gaps’: making ‘the unknown into an instance of the known, into another routine case’). By contrast, extraordinary or revolutionary science involves breaking the bounds, shifting the agenda. For Kuhn, some normal science throws up anomalies (or rogue solutions), which do not readily fit into the agreed framework. These remain as puzzles in themselves (‘unknown unknowns’), instances of where the paradigm has failed. They may be (largely) ignored, as most studies within the paradigm continue to succeed. As a volume of anomalies builds up, so concern grows about the paradigm’s viability either to one or a few workers only or to the community more generally. This logjam is only broken when a new paradigm is created, which can incorporate not only the existing knowledge but also (some at least of) the anomalies. This new paradigm then has to be ‘sold’ to the community; the sceptical have to be convinced that there is a ‘better way’ and this usually involves a ‘leap of (individual and/or collective) faith’ on their part, because of the incommensurability of the old and the new paradigms (the lack of common standards against which to judge an approach’s validity). Here, it seems, is a model that could be deployed to evaluate the submitted outputs in an RAE. Originality and significance clearly apply to works that stimulate a paradigm shift and such a shift is only likely to be successful if it is rigorously sustained. There are, however, several problems with that argument. The first (1962) edition of Kuhn’s book took no account of what he later adopted for the second (1970) edition, following a critique by Masterman (1970), who identified no less than 21 different usages of the term paradigm in the original and suggested that these could be classified into three main types: © 2008 The Author. Journal compilation © 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.


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1. The metaparadigm, which can be equated with a ‘world view’ or general organising principle for a scientific activity; 2. The sociological paradigm, which is a community’s accepted scientific achievements and working habits; and 3. The artefact or construct paradigm, which is a classic tool providing the model, or exemplar, for future work. The second provides the structure within which scientists work, and the third their problem-solving toolbox; the first comprises their overall views of the nature of science and its objects of study (its epistemology and ontology). Kuhn accepted this representation of his work, and argued that most of the shifts he was concerned with involved either sociological or construct paradigms. This clearly implies a hierarchy of changes. The first involves changes within the toolbox, introducing new ways of working (new exemplars of ‘best practice’), which occur within a community’s shared view of what they know and have yet to discover. The second involves changes in the community’s accepted knowledge base and ways of working – its disciplinary matrix. And the third, or highest, level involves changes in the metaparadigm, in the entire philosophy of science. Using this model as the basis for an RAE evaluation, therefore, would involve establishing whether or not a piece of work is normal or revolutionary science and, if the latter, at which scale. Is a change of exemplar as significant as one of disciplinary matrix, let alone one of world-view? Furthermore, changes at the level of the exemplar are presumably much more common than at the disciplinary matrix: we are more likely to develop a new tool to enable us to do better that which we are already doing than to introduce (and get accepted) a whole new way of approaching our subject. How many metaparadigmatic changes are likely to occur within the 6–7 years of work covered by an RAE? Or even changes in the sociological paradigm? So are the really significant and original pieces of work likely to be those that introduce a new exemplar, a new way of working within agreed limits, and the new findings that follow – unless, that is, there are to be extremely few outputs graded 4*? The second major critique of Kuhn’s argument that is very relevant to the RAE concerns its applicability across disciplines. It presents a very linear model of scientific ‘progress’, one that may apply to the natural sciences and related disciplines but less so to the humanities and social sciences (or at least to large parts of those disciplines). Kuhn himself recognised this, in essays published in 1977 and 1991 (Kuhn 1977, 1991; the latter is reprinted in Conant and Haugeland, 2000), which © 2008 The Author. Journal compilation © 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

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responded to a paper by Taylor (1985) that drew a clear distinction between studies of natural phenomena and human actions: the former can readily apply methods of scientific experimentation leading to explanation, whereas the latter can only hope to achieve hermeneutic interpretation (or understanding) of a changing social world in which all knowledge is therefore contingent. While partly agreeing, Kuhn nevertheless argued that all concepts of the natural and human worlds are cultural, shared by communities as influences on how they study their chosen objects (as he put it, ‘the heavens are not culture-independent’). Further, those shared meanings can be subjected to paradigmatic shocks, whether or not they refer to the natural or the human world; indeed a ‘natural scientific community’ is itself a culture whose traits are transmitted to new members in the same way as those of studies of human cultures by anthropologists. Nevertheless, there is a major difference: natural sciences are not hermeneutic enterprises in the way many social science and humanities disciplines are since the former seek better explanations of the phenomena they study through accepted ‘scientific (usually experimental) methods’, whereas the latter’s goals are newer and deeper interpretations. Given that difference, how do you identify a world-leading, original, rigorous and significantly deeper interpretation? What is progress within hermeneutic studies? Just as there are different cultures operating within the world that we study (at different scales of difference) there are also different cultures, or knowledge communities (Pinch, 1998), operating within an academic discipline; and how do you evaluate contributions to one vis-à-vis those in another? Whereas most natural scientists can identify progress, and perhaps agree substantially on its importance, within a normal scientific framework, the same cannot be said of most academics in the social sciences and the humanities. Thus, according to Fuller (2000, p. 228): Kuhn concluded that the history of the social sciences has not witnessed a clear succession of paradigms because social scientists have been unable to agree on research exemplars to underwrite the activity of normal science . . . the peculiar character of the social sciences can be traced historically to the social scientists having been guided by larger, conceptually unwieldy social problems that cannot be reduced to well-defined puzzles.

As a result, those disciplines (plus the humanities) are likely to be characterised by much more fluid structures, comprising subcommunities with fuzzy boundaries and changing memberships within which the significance of individual pieces of work may be difficult to assess (especially for ‘outsiders’). © 2008 The Author. Journal compilation © 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.


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Following that argument, Geertz (1983, p. 157) suggests that these ‘effective academic communities are not that much larger than most peasant villages and just about as ingrown’, working on particular subject matters or sets of problems, with specific methodologies.This may not be anarchy, as strictly defined, but it may not be far from it. As such, how can there be common criteria for evaluation, let alone agreement on what is the most significant (and original, and rigorous) work? Revolutions are thus rare within academic study, at whatever scale. In some disciplines, notably in the humanities and social sciences, where there are revolutions they do not conform to the Kuhnian model as applied in the social sciences; rather than say ‘here is a better way of explaining an agreed set of phenomena’ they are more likely to involve claims that the discipline should study different phenomena (and, almost necessarily, in different ways). Thus, whereas some disciplines may comprise a single community with a common world-view and disciplinary matrix plus a number of exemplars being used to lead research on various topics, other disciplines may contain two or more separate subcommunities with competing world-views and disciplinary matrices, let alone exemplars. Competition among these sub-communities may, in effect, lead to some sub-community members questioning the validity of their disciplinary colleagues’ work ( Johnston, 2006a).This leads to problems in reaching a collective determination of what is rigorous and significant even if there is agreement on its originality. For some disciplines, therefore, a summary of the applicability of Kuhn’s ideas might be ‘paradigms yes, revolutions no’ (Johnston and Sidaway, 2004). They comprise a number of distinct, if sometimes illdefined, sub-communities, which combine, politically if not intellectually, as a coherent body of scholars committed to a particular focus, most of them on subject matter. Those sub-communities may share a worldview and disciplinary matrix but each operates with its own exemplars that are relevant to the subject matter studied. Occasionally the exemplars will change; either because of a major discovery (e.g., Chadwick’s (1932) discovery that atoms contained neutrons as well as electrons and protons) or because better technical procedures are available (as with the introduction of instrumental variables to deal with endogeneity issues in econometrics; Morgan, 1990). Even bigger revolutions, such as the Copernican/Galilean revolution in astronomy and the Einsteinian in physics, will be extremely rare. In many social science and humanities disciplines, the political communities share much less: there is more than one disciplinary matrix, if not world-view, competing for intra-disciplinary space. Those separate © 2008 The Author. Journal compilation © 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

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intra-disciplinary sub-communities not only have very different exemplars but also different agenda and goals, which suggests not only very different conceptions of originality, rigour and significance but also, leading from those, different judgements of what is world-leading, internationally excellent, and so on. Several paradigms coexist, each probably associated with a number of small sub-communities (Geertz’s ‘peasant villages’), and may well be in conflict. One sub-community may however dominate a sub-panel’s evaluations; this is what Lee (2007) explicitly argues for economics at previous RAEs, with ‘heterodox economics’ degraded and marginalised because its adherents are unable to publish in what are considered the discipline’s ‘top journals’, and Smolin (2006) implicitly argues for physics with string theory having ‘taken over’ the discipline in recent years. If this is not to be the case, then RAE panels and sub-panels will have to accommodate these, often very considerable, differences within a discipline by ensuring that some sub-communities (and thus, potentially, university departments, or at least substantial portions of them) are not privileged over others in their interpretations of the criteria.2 Indeed, the issue precedes these considerations, since the constitution of sub-panels needs to be consistent with the recognition of separate sub-communities within the discipline(s) contained within many of the UoAs: if the sub-panel membership is considered unrepresentative (implying greater internal homogeneity than is really the case), so that certain types of work cannot be ‘properly assessed’ by those undertaking the task, then certain sub-communities could be disadvantaged, with consequences for the funding of the universities where they are most numerous (RAE sub-panels are able to send work to other sub-panels for evaluation and request their specialist advice, but whether or not this will benefit the work so referred is a moot point). There is no model of how academic work is undertaken and ‘progresses’ that can readily be applied across all disciplines (or even within many disciplines). Academics operate within paradigms, communities of scholars with shared understandings of knowledge, approaches and methods from which spring appreciations of the relative quality (originality, rigour and significance) of work in their (sub-) fields; and there are few revolutions, even at the exemplar scale, within any short period. The task of the panels and sub-panels in preparing for their assessments was to make those understandings and appreciations specific (reflecting their, discipline-specific in most cases, separate discourses) so that their procedures for classification of the submitted outputs would be generally accepted. They were asked to identify the main paradigms within their respective UoAs and specify how their © 2008 The Author. Journal compilation © 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.


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subjective decision making would be both coherent and consistent. How did they do it? So what is original, significant and rigorous? What is world-leading? The production of the panel and sub-panel definitions (some panels produced a single set embracing all of their sub-panels) involved several hundred senior academics who also consulted widely. The result should be a series of clear, discipline-specific, statements of what comprises academic work of different quality. But is it? The following analysis suggests that all that most of the panels and sub-panels have done is rewrite one set of relatively vague descriptors into another: the words may be different but the imprecision is just the same so that, like pornography, academic excellence can be recognised but not defined! Original, significant and rigorous Throughout the documentation for RAE2008, great emphasis is placed on the three criteria against which all outputs and other indicators should be assessed. This trilogy of originality, significance and rigour is introduced in a table setting out the definitions of the five chosen quality levels, published in the initial guidance to panels (RAE2008, 2005, p. 9). Earlier in that document a more general statement indicates that: Examples of indicators used to judge research output, for example, might include originality, imaginative range or significance, as demonstrated by the extent to which knowledge or understanding in the field has been increased or practice has been or is likely to be improved.

A number of the panels and sub-panels (especially in the humanities and social sciences) have taken up the criterion of imaginative range, though none defines it, but all necessarily focus on originality, significance and rigour. A few extended the range with European Studies (UoA 50), for example, referring to ‘quality, ambition [my emphasis] and originality of the research design and methodology’. What do they mean? For most of the panels the terms are taken as self-explanatory and there is no explication of how they will be interpreted. This includes almost all of those covering medicine, the natural sciences and engineering. There are a few exceptions where the terms are slightly extended. UoA 8 (‘Primary care and other community based clinical subjects’) includes a statement (para. 13) that ‘Outputs © 2008 The Author. Journal compilation © 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

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presenting a new hypothesis will be considered equally to primary research, and assessed in terms of their originality and power to stimulate new work’ and the four UoAs under panel C (see Table 1) all include the following (para. 21 in UoA 10): In considering outputs the sub-panel will use its academic and professional judgement to assess their quality using such criteria as: a. b. c. d.

Novelty and originality of the underlying idea, hypothesis and/or method; Scientific rigour with regard to design, method and analysis; The logical coherence of argument; Significance of work to advancing knowledge, skills, understanding and scholarship in theory, practice, education, management and/or policy; e. Scholarship in theory, practice, education, management and/or policy; f. Engagement with service users, the public, industry and/or policy; g. Applicability and significance to service and research users.

These, in effect, do little more than extend and amplify the list of criteria. For the scientists and technologists involved in the RAE, therefore, it seems that the concepts of originality, significance and rigour are very largely unproblematic. Like Justice Potter Stewart they know it when they see it and assume that their colleagues share their appreciation: there is no need to define what is self-evident. This is not the case with many of the social science and humanities disciplines, however. Two panels (L and O) and a substantial number of sub-panels found it necessary to set out their understanding of the three concepts, some of them in considerable detail: their texts are reproduced in the Appendix. Some provide little more than a brief amplification – that adopted by panel L, for example, merely adds a criterion (imaginative range, which is undefined) and expands on significance, whereas the three definitions produced by UoA 39 (Politics and international studies) do little more than recognise the disciplines’ plurality of approaches (which may be incommensurable).3 Others are more detailed and prescriptive, as with those for the four, economics-based, UoAs in panel I, which implicitly constrain the criteria to a particular approach (see Lee, 2007), and the long definitions adopted by UoAs 44, 45, and 46. For each of the criteria, these explications carry very similar messages. Originality is associated with innovation, addressing new questions, producing new evidence and insights and developing new syntheses of existing work. It is virtually synonymous with novelty, though the importance of any piece of work has to be judged by the other criteria as well. Rigour is linked to robustness of argument and method, and includes methodological advances in some cases; the Architecture sub-panel © 2008 The Author. Journal compilation © 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.


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(UoA30), for example, defines rigour as including ‘research processes which are not necessarily systematic or linear, yet demonstrate intellectual precision and material integrity, and innovations in process and/or product in relation to its context’. Finally, the usual extended definition of significance relates to agenda-setting, for both intellectual and policyoriented work. (From its origins in the mid-1980s, part of the rationale for the RAE has been to demonstrate the applied value of university research; though see the criticism in, for example, McNay 2003 and Furlong and Oancea 2005.) Whether or not any of these definitions adds a great deal to the general appreciation of the three criteria, and thereby aids both individual researchers in deciding which work to submit and sub-panels how to judge it, is open to doubt. Clearly most of the academics involved in the sub-panels associated with humanities and social science disciplines considered it necessary to spell out how they would deploy the criteria. Perhaps this was done for no other reason than to convince members of their respective disciplines that they would not be overly prescriptive in what they considered of high quality by recognising the pluralism, and sometimes contested nature, that characterises many of those disciplines. If it is robustly argued, innovative and agenda setting for at least some practitioners, then it qualifies. However, scientists and technologists saw no need to undertake such (defensive?) exercises: for them, it seems, the criteria were either unproblematic or too problematic and so not confronted. World-leading, excellent . . . The five quality levels . . . apply to all UOAs. Some panel criteria statements include a descriptive account of the quality level definitions, to inform their subject communities on how they will apply each level in judging quality. These descriptive accounts should be read alongside, but do not replace, the standard definitions. (RAE2008, 2006, para. 19)

In their preparatory work, each of the panels and sub-panels was required to consider how they would interpret the generic criteria for evaluating research outputs (Table 2) and produce a document outlining the procedures they intended to adopt. Most decided to at least put a particular gloss on those generic criteria. The main exceptions were panels A and B (which cover most of the medical sciences, excluding dentistry, nursing and pharmacy). Panel A merely stated that it would look for ‘evidence of scientific rigour and excellence originality, novelty, potential applicability to human health, applicability and sig© 2008 The Author. Journal compilation © 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

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nificance to health service and research users, significant addition to knowledge and to the conceptual framework of the field, and contribution to the development of the researchers of the future’; panel B said even less, indicating that a sample of outputs would be assessed by sub-panel members to ensure consistency in application of the quality levels. A few others just repeated the generic descriptors (as with panels G and H, although in the latter each of its sub-panels then added its own gloss, in part to reflect professional, practice-based considerations in UoAs 30 and 31). The remaining panels and sub-panels produced a range of different interpretations and amplifications of the generic criteria, although there were some similarities (members of the RAE secretariat almost certainly suggested particular wordings that had been deployed elsewhere). Some provided very long descriptions; others were relatively short. They have not been reproduced here and the following discussion is based on a summary classification into three main groups. The first of these groups, comprising panels C, D, F, K, and N, emphasises the degree of significance or impact. Panel C, for example, uses the terms ‘an outstanding contribution’, ‘a highly significant contribution’, ‘a significant contribution’ and ‘a contribution’ in its descriptive sentences for grades 4*, 3*, 2* and 1*, respectively. Panel K similarly employs ‘highly significant’, ‘significant’, ‘recognised contribution’ and ‘limited contribution’. For ‘highly significant’, it further states that the research will have generated ‘new methods, new practices, new theoretical frameworks, new understandings’, while 3* and 2* contributions are to ‘match the standards of internationally peer reviewed research’ – with 3* contributions in addition to being of ‘high quality’. (Recall that within Panel K, UoAs 44 and 45 also provided lengthy descriptions of originality, rigour and significance: Appendix I.) Panel D deploys similar terminology as well as referring to ‘setting the research agenda’ (4*); adding ‘important knowledge, ideas or techniques . . . likely to have a lasting impact’ (3*); and having ‘incremental and short term influence’ (2*): work graded 1* ‘is likely to have little influence’. Finally, UoA 20 within panel F describes the four grades of work as having ‘a significant impact’, ‘a clear impact’, ‘an impact’ and ‘unlikely to have more than a minor impact’ on the development of the field respectively, and the other sub-panels repeat that terminology. A second group of panels (I, J, M, N and O) stresses one aspect of a work’s significance – the degree to which it is a point of reference for other workers. Panel I, for example, describes 4* outputs as ‘comparable to the best work in the field or sub-field . . . It has become, or is likely to © 2008 The Author. Journal compilation © 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.


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become, a primary point of reference in its field or sub-field’. Moving down the scale, 3* outputs will be, or are likely to be, ‘a major point of reference’ whereas 2* and 1* items will make ‘a contribution’ or a ‘limited contribution’ respectively. Panel J uses the same terminology for 4* and 3*; 2* are ‘a reference point’ and 1* ‘a contribution’. In panel M the four descriptors are set out in each sub-panel’s document, using the same terminology: 4* refers to an output that: . . . is, or ought to be, an essential point of reference in its field or sub-field, and makes a contribution of which every serious researcher in the field ought to be aware

whereas 3* outputs make a contribution of which every serious researcher ought to be aware; and 2* outputs are ‘substantial contribution[s] . . . likely to inform subsequent work’. Panel N uses very similar terms except for opining that 2* work ‘merits attention in the field’ and 1* ‘merits some attention’.Within that panel, the sub-panel for UoA 62 (History) expands on those descriptors, notably for 4*: Originality can be in the form of reshaping interpretations or approaches or opening up new sources, new data or material. Significance will be judged on the basis of, for example, depth and likely lasting scholarly value. Rigour will be judged on, for example, accuracy, clarity and standards of scholarship. Work graded 4* will be outstanding in respect of virtually all these qualities.

Finally, for panel O the respective adjectives to ‘point of reference’ for the four grades are ‘essential’, ‘major’, ‘important’ and ‘useful’. The third class, in some ways a subset of the previous one, comprises the paradigm shifters. Kuhn’s concept imbues panel E’s lengthy grade descriptors. Thus 4* work in the core natural sciences of physics, chemistry and earth systems is ‘agenda setting . . . leading or at the forefront of the research area . . . [demonstrates] great novelty . . . [a] major influence on a research theme or field . . . developing new paradigms or new concepts for research . . . [and stimulating] major changes in policy or practice with regard to applied research’. By comparison, 3* work ‘contributes important ideas and techniques which are likely to have lasting impact, but are not developing new paradigms’; and 2* outputs use ‘established techniques or approaches, which conform with existing ideas or paradigms’. This is by far the most developed use of Kuhn’s terminology. Panel L’s descriptors have much in common with those in the point of reference group, but, perhaps surprisingly for area studies disciplines normally associated with the humanities and social sciences, its sentence for 4* begins with ‘Research of the highest standards which © 2008 The Author. Journal compilation © 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

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is paradigm-shifting or which in the panel’s informed judgement is likely to become so . . . ’ Finally, within panel H, whose general statements emphasise agenda-setting, 1* work is described as ‘contributing to existing paradigms and agendas’: UoA 32 (geography) extends this use of Kuhn’s concepts, describing 2* work as ‘offering an incremental advance within existing paradigms, traditions of inquiry, or domains of policy and practice’ and 1* as ‘largely framed by existing paradigms . . . ’4 Kuhn’s model of disciplinary change is therefore only explicitly deployed in a small number of cases. Even in those, the scale at which the concept of paradigm is used is far from explicit, although it is hard to expect shifts other than at that of the exemplar: panel E refers to new paradigms (note the plural) and ‘fundamental new concepts’ and panel H to ‘existing paradigms and agendas’. It seems likely that although the term is used, the details of its definitions have not been carefully addressed. The deployment of paradigm for 2* and 1* descriptors in panel H clearly implies working within the frameworks of existing research communities: ‘paradigm-shifting’ and ‘new paradigms’ for N and E respectively imply the establishment of new research sub-communities. How likely is it that one piece of output will do that? What comes through more clearly from not only those using the paradigm concept but also the grade descriptors drawn up by other panels and sub-panels is that the academics involved have been unable to produce descriptions of the four grades that improve substantially on the generic set provided at the outset of the exercise (the fifth category, ‘unclassified’, is ignored here as there are no substantial variations in its definition). Academics frequently make subjective judgements of the quality of work submitted to them, by their peers (through the journal refereeing process) as well as by their students, even though they have little or no training to do that. As Middlehurst (1993) has argued, there are seven ‘cults’ of academic life – of the gifted amateur, heredity, deficiency, adequacy, implicit, selection, and individual – which are used to deny the need for training in a range of tasks, and evaluation is one of them.They bring that experience to the RAE: they are able to judge what is likely to become a primary point of reference in their field and will have lasting impact; and they may well be right (how could they be put to the test?). One important aspect of many of the definitions is the implication that they carry for the development of ‘objective indicators’, which the funding councils, under significant pressure from the government, are committed to use for future RAEs, replacing the time-consuming (and therefore © 2008 The Author. Journal compilation © 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.


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expensive) subjective judgements by metric-based, ‘objective’ systems (Johnston, 2006b); HEFCE’s proposals for this new system – to cover science, engineering and medicine UoAs only – relying on citation data are published as HEFCE (2007). Thus, for example, the statement by panel K that 3* and 2* contributions are to ‘match the standards of internationally peer-reviewed research’ could well mean that publication in a defined set of journals is considered a mark of that level of excellence (which is what Lee, 2007, claimed occurred in previous economics evaluations), as well as successful grant-winning from recognised bodies such as the UK Research Councils. Several of the panels and sub-panels explicitly claim that they do not have lists of the ‘more prestigious’ journals (see note 4) and claim that the quality of the work will be assessed by its internal merits, irrespective of where it appears. Nevertheless, the implication is there: research of a certain quality meets the standards of certain outlets and funders even though they too could not be expressed in other than subjective terms such as the ones discussed here. A further indicator of the potential for a shift towards a metrics-based RAE is the number of references to outputs that have made or are likely to make (highly significant, significant and recognised) contributions to their field (another undefined term), as well as to (primary, essential and so on) points of reference, to every serious researcher in a field being aware of an item, and to informing subsequent work. Such statements clearly imply that the outputs are, or will be, heavily cited within their field, because many other researchers will build on them; developing their ideas, testing their hypotheses, deploying their methods. Citation counts are already widely used in academic evaluations, with the frequency of citation being taken as a major indicator of the impact of a piece of work although the volume of citations is rarely linked to the number of practitioners in the relevant field/sub-field (Bodman, 1991, 1992). Citations are retrospective indicators and it may be difficult to use them for recently published items whose impact is not immediate, which may be the case in some disciplines more than others (Yeung, 2002). However, the implicit linking of the grade descriptors to existing and potential metrics gives a clear clue to how many academics think about the impact of a piece of work, and possibly an indicator of what some of the RAE2008 sub-panels’ evaluators may do when classifying the various outputs. Conclusions . . . there is an enormous increase in the amount of publication each year, and although you may be able to produce 50 per cent more papers per © 2008 The Author. Journal compilation © 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

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annum, it is doubtful whether you could read them. It is also doubtful whether there is any use reading them; it is really a sorting process. If you read one in a hundred or one in a thousand of the papers you will find out the state of the field. (Bernal, quoted in Brown, 2005, pp. 451)

Academic life, as with many other aspects of society, is replete with individuals making judgements about either other individuals or examples of their work; judgements that can have major consequences regarding careers and even life-chances. The UK RAEs are an excellent example of an institutionalised judgemental process within academia with major impacts not only for individual careers but also the financial and intellectual health of groups of researchers (particularly academic departments) and even entire universities and other institutions. Because of the perceived importance of those judgements, and the possibility of them being challenged legally, those managing the latest RAE have sought to formalise the criteria that will be deployed in a new system that involves the explicit ranking of every item of research output submitted to the exercise. To a large extent, the formalisation has failed. The overall schema involves the identification of three major criteria – originality, rigour and significance – that are to be used to place research outputs in one of five grades according to their perceived quality. Those subjective criteria and grade descriptors were given to the 15 main panels and 67 sub-panels that were to make the judgements, with the invitation that, where they considered it necessary, they amplified the definitions for both the criteria and the grades. Many accepted this invitation, and produced extended definitions of either or both. None, however, was able to provide a verbal description that was any more exact than the generic set; they merely rewrote the subjective criteria that they would deploy to place items into the five grades. This major exercise did very little to formalise the evaluation procedure. In many ways this is not surprising. Most academics work within the constraints of their training and socialisation as members of one or more academic communities. They have shared appreciations of what their (sub-)discipline studies, what its goals are, and how they pursue original research. They practice normal science; either applying existing methodologies (of a technical nature in some disciplines) to address unsolved problems in a linear progression or using accepted means to broaden or deepen understanding of the human condition. Occasionally, they will do something particularly original (solve a very difficult technical or analytical problem, e.g., or undertake a major synthesis of existing knowledge, or explore a new theme with novel © 2008 The Author. Journal compilation © 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.


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methods) and have a substantial impact accordingly. But these ‘paradigm shifters’ are rare; otherwise the nature of a discipline will be frequently overturned, making it very difficult to identify consistent criteria on which to judge its contents. Furthermore, the full impact of any ‘revolutionary’ piece may only be appreciated some years after the work has been published so that its assessment by an RAE sub-panel is based on evaluation of its potential impact only, which is clearly a highly subjective task. Given this description of the nature of academic research activity, the implication to be drawn with regard to the RAE assessments is that a majority should only be allocated a 2* grade, which most of the descriptions discussed here suggest is the correct category for the great bulk of normal science; the occasional highly original piece of work in that mould, plus some paradigm-shifting pieces at the exemplar scale, would be allocated 3*. The accolade of 4* should be extremely rare. Most sub-panels expand on the term ‘world-leading’ in the generic descriptors using terminology suggesting pieces of work that have very substantial impact on all workers in the field in which they are published (which itself is difficult to define). Such a limited number of 4* grades is however extremely unlikely – for political rather than intellectual reasons. If a sub-panel is grudging with its 4* grades (and probably 3* too) it will, in effect, be saying that there is little work done in the UK in that discipline that is world-leading, which will place the discipline at a disadvantage, not least in the allocation of funding relative to others, where more high grades are allocated. A clear response to this problem was recommended to, but rejected by, the funding councils in the Roberts Report. It proposed a threefold classification of outputs, and recommended that ‘panels be given guidelines on expected proportions of one star, two star and three star ratings. These proportions should be the same for each unit of assessment. If a panel awarded grades that were more or less generous than anticipated in the guidelines, these grades would have to be confirmed through moderation’ (Roberts, 2003, Recommendation 5c, para. 171). In the 2001 RAE, panels were required to draw up statements describing their working methods and assessment criteria. Roberts proposed retention of many of the key features of the 2001 exercise, including that ‘panels establish their own assessment criteria in consultation with their research community’ (Roberts, 2003, para. 12f), adding the specific recommendation that ‘panels should ensure that their criteria statements enable them to guarantee that practice based and applied research are assessed according to criteria which reflect the characteristics of excellence in © 2008 The Author. Journal compilation © 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

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those types of research in those disciplines’ (Roberts, 2003, Recommendation 7b, para. 204). If the funding councils had accepted Roberts’ recommendations, the panels and sub-panels would have faced a very different task.They would have been invited to make relative not absolute judgements. If 20 per cent of outputs were to get the top grade, for example, then they would have had to rank order them on the agreed criteria. Instead they have been asked to make absolute judgements, not that this piece of work is among the best 20 per cent produced in that discipline, but that it meets standards of originality, rigour and significance which mean that, for example, every worker in that field will see it as making a major contribution to the field’s advancement. Both types of judgement are difficult, but absolute judgements are more difficult than relative ones, especially when the criteria for making such subjective judgements are (necessarily?) vague and difficult to condense into any more rigorous form (although, as indicated above, there are implications that different types of metric could be substituted for the subjective judgements in certain circumstances). As demonstrated here, the RAE2008 panels and subpanels were unable to expand on the criteria and extend the generic grade descriptors in any way that enhanced the outsider’s appreciation of what would be done, let alone give the sub-panel members any clearer guidance on how to undertake their task. All of the UK RAEs have been exercises in subjective judgement by experts applying their professional expertise, experience and knowledge to try and identify where the best research is being done. They have differed in degree but not in kind from the wide range of other subjective judgement processes undertaken in academic life. There were attempts, as in the 2001 exercise, to systematise these subjective judgements with grade descriptors, but these were at best vague and at worst uninformative; the experts simply rank ordered UoAs within each panel’s jurisdiction and then drew dividing lines between the grades where they considered it appropriate. For the 2008 RAE, the funding councils have sought to systematise the grading procedure even more. This is in part because they are now asking panels and sub-panels to evaluate separately every piece of research output submitted and to build a quality profile for each UoA based on evaluations of its submitted research outputs, description of its research environment, and details of its members’ esteem indicators. To advance that, they identified three explicit criteria against which the judgements were to be made, as the basis for placing each output in one of five quality categories, themselves given descriptive statements encapsulating the quality of work. © 2008 The Author. Journal compilation © 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.


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The RAEs have come in for a great deal of criticism within the UK academic community, which has not prevented the model being adopted and adapted elsewhere ( Johnston, 2006c; Worthington and Hodgson, 2006). RAEs, as the Roberts report recognised and was reflected in its consultations, are essentially exercises dependent ‘upon expert peer review to identify the best research’, comparable in detail if not in scale to many other such exercises in which academics are involved. Experts are asked to classify materials into categories based on their perceived quality. The experience of the build-up to RAE2008 is that this is not feasible; all that can be produced is a series of subjective statements because precise benchmarking is not possible.Academic excellence, Justice Potter Stewart might well have decided if the RAE had been contested before him in the US Supreme Court, can be identified but not defined. Notes 1. The source is the case of Jacobellis vs. Ohio (378 US 184, 1964) and the full text is: ‘I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced within that shorthand description [i.e. hard-core pornography]; and perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so. But I know it when I see it . . . ’ 2. The issue of disciplines (or, at least, disciplinary RAE panels and sub-panels) having lists of journals according to their perceived quality, so that publication in some is seen as much more prestigious and indicative of excellent than in others, has long concerned some subject communities (in most of which there is clear evidence that academics select their ‘four best outputs’ from a relatively limited range: Johnston, 2003).Thus, for example, the sub-panel for UoA 39 (Politics and international studies) in RAE2008 not only stated that it ‘will not establish a list of the relative standing of journals. It recognises that some types of research are published in less prominent or more specialised journals’ but also that it ‘will not establish a list of the relative standing of publishers’ for books and monographs because ‘some types of research are published by less prominent or more specialist publishers’. Law (UoA 38) made a similar statement with respect to journals. 3. This concern with plurality of competing approaches is a particular concern of (human) geographers and sociologists. For the latter UoA 41’s document states that ‘the sub-panel will use these criteria to assess all forms of research. To ensure that new and emerging areas are not disadvantaged, the benchmarks of excellence will be applied flexibly when assessing research at the cutting edge of the research area. In view of the diverse nature of the discipline of sociology, the sub-panel understands the quality descriptors to relate to indicators within fields, sub-fields and cognate areas . . . ’ 4. Similar phrases were used in the 2001 RAE. For example, the History panel referred to ‘national excellence’ as embracing ‘highly competent work within existing paradigms which does not necessarily alter interpretations’ and the Music panel defined ‘internationally excellent work’ as ‘likely to contribute to the formation of new paradigms or the significant extension of existing ones’. Other definitions also draw on the 2001 documentation: the Geography panel, for example, understood ‘research of international excellence to be that which is judged to shape the development of the field with respect to new empirical findings, or new concepts, or new methodologies, or new applications, and is expected to steer research agendas for the foreseeable future’ (all of these quotes are taken from http://www.hero.ac.uk/rae/Pubs/5_99/RAE5_99.doc). © 2008 The Author. Journal compilation © 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

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Acknowledgements Thanks to Graham Badley, Rita Johnston and Kelvyn Jones for valuable comments on drafts of this essay. References Allan, K. (2006) Excellence: A New Keyword for Education. Critical Quarterly, 47, pp. 54–78. Barnes, B. (1982) T. S. Kuhn and Social Science. London: Macmillan. Bodman, A. R. (1991) Weavers of Influence: The Structure of Contemporary Geographic Research. Transactions, Institute of British Geographers, NS16, pp. 21–27. Bodman, A. R. (1992) Holes in the Fabric: More on the Master Weavers in Human Geography. Transactions, Institute of British Geographers, NS17, pp. 108–109. Brown, A. (2005) J. D. Bernal: The Sage of Science. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Castree, N., Aspinall, R., Berg, L. D., Böhle, H. D., Hoggart, K., Kitchin, R., Kleine, D., Kulke, E., Munton, R., Pawson, E., Powell, J., Sheppard, E. and van Weesep, J. (2006) Research Assessment and the Production of Geographical Knowledge. Progress in Human Geography, 30, pp. 747–782. Chadwick, J. (1932) The Existence of a Neutron. Proceedings of the Royal Society A, 136, pp. 692–708. Conant, J. and Haugeland, J. (eds) (2000) The Road Since Structure: Thomas S. Kuhn. Philosophical Essays, 1970–1993 with an Autobiographical Interview. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Fuller, S. (2000) Thomas Kuhn: A Philosophical History for our Times. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Furlong, J. and Oancea, A. (2005) Assessing Quality in Applied and Practice-Based Educational Research: A Framework for Discussion. Oxford: Oxford University Department of Educational Studies. Geertz, C. (1983) Local Knowledge: Further Essays in Interpretive Anthropology. New York: Basic Books. Geuna, A. and Martin, B. R. (2003) University Research Evaluation and Funding: An International Comparison. Minerva, 41, pp. 277–304. HEFCE (2007) Research Excellence Framework: Consultation on the Assessment and funding of Higher Education Research Post-2008. Available, with supporting research papers, http:// www.hefce.ac.uk/pubs/hefce/2007/07_34/, last accessed 24 January 2008. Howie, G. (2006) Universities in the UK: Drowning by Numbers. Critical Quarterly, 47, pp. 1–10. Johnston, R. J. (2003) Geography: A Different Sort of Discipline? Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, NS28, pp. 133–141. Johnston, R. J. (2006a) The Politics of Changing Human Geography’s Agenda: Textbooks and the Representation of Increasing Diversity. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, NS31, pp. 286–303. Johnston, R. J. (2006b) The Death – or Dumbing-Down – of the RAE? Environment and Planning B: Planning and Design, 33, pp. 321–324. Johnston, R. J. (2006c) Research quality assessment and geography in Australia: Can anything be learned from the UK experience? Geographical Research, 44, pp. 1–11. Johnston, R. J. and Sidaway, J. D. (2004) Geography and geographers:Anglo-American human geography since 1945, 6th edn. London: Edward Arnold. Kuhn, T. S. (1962 (1970, 2nd edn.)) The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Kuhn, T. S. (1977) Second Thoughts on Paradigms. In F. Suppe (ed.), The Structure of Scientific Theories. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, pp. 458–482, 500–517. © 2008 The Author. Journal compilation © 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.


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Kuhn, T. S. (1991) The Natural and the Human Sciences. In D. J. Hiley, R. Bohman and R. Shusterman (eds.), The Interpretative Turn: Philosophy Science, Culture. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, pp. 17–24. Lee, F. S. (2007) The Research Assessment Exercise, the State and the Dominance of Mainstream Economics in British Universities. Cambridge Journal of Economics, 31, pp. 309–325. Masterman, M. (1970) The Nature of a Paradigm. In I. Lakatos and A. Musgrave (eds.), Criticism and the Growth of Knowledge. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 59–90. McNay, I. (2003) Assessing the Assessment: An Analysis of the UK Research Assessment Exercise, 2001, and its Outcomes, with Special Reference to Work in Education. Science and Public Policy, 30, pp. 47–54. McNay, I. (2007) Research Assessment: Researcher Autonomy. In C. Kayrooz, G. Akerlind and M. Tight (eds.), Autonomy in Social Science Research: The View from United Kingdom and Australian Universities. International Perspectives on Higher Education Research, Vol. 4. New York: Elsevier, pp. 183–216. McNay, I. (2008) Research Quality Assessment. International Encyclopedia of Higher Education. New York: Elsevier. Middlehurst, R. (1993) Leading Academics. Buckingham: Open University Press. Morgan, M. S. (1990) The History of Econometric Ideas. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Pinch, S. P. (1998) Knowledge Communities, Spatial Theory and Social Policy. Social Policy and Administration, 32, pp. 556–571. RAE2008 (2005) Guidance to Panels. http://www.rae.ac.uk/pubs/2005/01/rae0105.pdf, last accessed 24 January 2008. RAE2008 (2006) Panel Criteria andWorking Methods. http://www.rae.ac.uk/pubs/2006/01/, last accessed 24 January 2008. Roberts, G. (2003) Review of Research Assessment: Report by Sir Gareth Roberts to the UK funding bodies. http://www.ra-review.ac.uk/reports/roberts.asp, last accessed 24 January 2008. Smolin, L. (2006) The Trouble with Physics:The Rise of String Theory, the Fall of a Science and What Comes Next. London: Allen Lane. Taylor, C. (1985) Interpretation and the Sciences of Man. In C. Taylor (ed.), Philosophy and the Human Sciences. Philosophical papers,Vol. 2. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. (This was first published as Taylor, C. (1979) Interpretation and the Sciences of Man. In R. Rabinow and W. Sullivan (eds.), Interpretive Social Science. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 25–71.) Worthington, F. and Hodgson, J. (2006) Academic Labour and the Politics of Quality in Higher Education: A Critical Evaluation of the Conditions of Possibility of Resistance. Critical Quarterly, 47, pp. 96–110. Yeung, H. W.-C. (2002) Deciphering Citations. Environment and Planning A, 34, pp. 2093–2101.

Appendix: definitions of originality, significance and rigour UoAs 34, 35, 36, 37 Originality in terms, for example, of innovation or distinctiveness in the methodological approach or in the datasets used, of research question posed, or of the underlying hypothesis or theoretical frameworks applied. Significance in terms, for example, of providing understanding of economic behaviour, or insight into the construction of economic policy © 2008 The Author. Journal compilation © 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

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making, or in the development of the discipline of economics and econometrics. Rigour in terms, for example, of the contextualisation of the work, the strength, appropriateness and intellectual coherence of approach, or the extent to which this supports the research outcomes. UoA 39 Originality, recognising that new knowledge and understanding can come in a wide variety of forms. Rigour, recognising the need for sensitivity to a plurality of approaches and methods while endorsing high standards of scholarship. Significance, recognising the different needs and expectations of academic and other communities, giving due weight to potential as well as actual significance. UoA 41 The quality of outputs will be assessed in relation to the extent that work demonstrates originality, rigour and significance. In terms of originality, the sub-panel will consider the intellectually innovative character of the research to be the most important characteristic. In terms of rigour, the sub-panel will consider the robustness of the argument and methodology, and the appropriateness of method(s). In terms of significance, the sub-panel will consider the contribution of the output towards setting or advancing the intellectual or policy agenda or generating new audiences; the extent to which the research activity is generally recognised as being of high quality in and beyond the subject community or specialism; the degree to which the output has promoted the discipline, raised its profile among other disciplines, and developed interdisciplinary research; and the effect and influence generated in user communities by the output. UoA 42 In all cases the sub-panel will expect originality, significance and rigour to be embodied in work that presents new empirical material, discoveries or substantive findings, generates novel conceptual or theoretical syntheses, tests hypotheses, and/or pioneers innovative research agendas and directions. UoA 43 In terms of originality, the sub-panel will consider the contribution to the advancement of theory and/or the innovative character of the research © 2008 The Author. Journal compilation © 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.


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(i.e., new and significant research questions, new kinds of evidence, new interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary insights). In terms of rigour, the sub-panel’s criteria for excellence will be theoretical or conceptual rigour; the clarity of research and its relation to research design and practical methodology; advances in analytical methods; and the interpretation of evidence, which sets new standards for research in the field. In terms of significance, the sub-panel will consider the prescriptive and/or critical contributions of the output towards the advancement of policy agendas and policy practice which affect developing countries; and the effect and influence generated by the theoretical or empirical insights of the research among academic and other users. UoAs 44, 45, 46 Originality is a characteristic of research which is not merely a replication of other work or simply applies well-used methods to straightforward problems, but which engages with new or complex problems or debates and/or tackles existing problems in new ways. So, for example, a review of existing research can demonstrate originality if it analyses and/or synthesises the field in new ways, providing new and salient conceptualisations. Originality can also lie on the development of innovative designs, methods and methodologies, analytical models or theories and concepts. Significance can be judged in different ways according to whether the research is basic, strategic or applied. Research has, or has the potential to have, considerable significance if it breaks new theoretical or methodological ground, provides new social science knowledge or tackles important practical, current problems, and provides trustworthy results in some field of education.These results might be empirical or analytical and theoretical, providing new (and sometimes challenging) conceptualisations, and evidence for audiences ranging from academics to policymakers and practitioners. Ways of evaluating the significance of research include judging its effect or potential effect on the development of the field, examining contributions to existing debates, and assessing its impact or potential impact on policy and practice.The nature and degree of immediate impact on policymakers or practitioners will provide some useful indication of significance in terms of ‘value for use’. However, there may be reasons for high impact that are not dependent on research quality; and, equally, in many cases the observable impact of high quality research is achieved only over the longer term. Theoretical and more analytical research can also be of high significance if it takes forward the state of current international knowledge in its field, © 2008 The Author. Journal compilation © 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

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and has influenced, or has the potential to influence, the work of other theoreticians . . . Rigour can be judged in many ways, and can helpfully be associated with methodological and theoretical robustness and the use of a systematic approach. It includes traditional qualities such as reliability and validity, and also qualities such as integrity, consistency of argument and consideration of ethnical issues. It certainly entails demonstrating a sound background of scholarship, in the sense of familiarity and engagement with relevant literature, both substantive and methodological. Different dimensions of rigour will be important in different types of research but rigour can best be assessed on a case by case basis using whichever dimensions are most appropriate. In the case of outputs that are primarily directed towards utility, it is still the rigour of the underpinning research work that will be assessed and will need to be evident. Panel L Originality Imaginative range Significance, as demonstrated by the extent to which knowledge or understanding in the field has been increased or practice has been or is likely to be improved. Rigour UoAs 51-58 Originality: an intellectual advance or an important and innovative contribution to understanding and knowledge.This may include substantive empirical findings, new interpretations or insights, development of new theoretical frameworks and conceptual models, and innovative methodologies. Significance: imaginative scope; importance of the issues addressed; impact or implications for other researchers and users. Rigour: intellectual coherence, methodological precision and analytical power; accuracy and depth of scholarship; evidence of awareness of and appropriate. UoA 62 Originality can be in the form of reshaping interpretations or approaches or opening up new sources, new data or material. Significance will be judged on the basis of, for example, depth and likely lasting scholarly value. Rigour will be judged on, for example, accuracy, clarity and standards of scholarship. © 2008 The Author. Journal compilation © 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.


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Panel O Significance Originality Rigour

The degree to which work has enhanced, or is likely to enhance, knowledge, thinking, understanding and/or practice in its field. The degree to which the work has developed new formulations or data and/or initiated new methods and/or forms of expression. The degree of intellectual precision and/or systematic method and/or integrity embodied in the research.

Source: All of these statements are taken verbatim from the 15 booklets – RAE2008 (2006) Panel criteria and working methods: RAE 01/2006 (A) – RAE 01/2006 (O).



Review James Axtell (2006) The Making of Princeton University: from Woodrow Wilson to the Present. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press. ISBN-13: 978-0-691-12686-9. 647 pages. $35.00. Princeton was founded in 1746, it was unusual amongst East coast colleges in that in 1868 it had looked overseas and had persuaded Professor James McCosh, a professor of philosophy at Aberdeen University, to be a reforming President, but it was still technically a college when Woodrow Wilson, who had been a professor there, returned to take up the Presidency in 1902. Wilson resigned the Presidency in 1910, defeated in his plans to create a Graduate School along the lines he had wanted, and four years later became President of the United States. Wilson took over a slackly led (by McCosh’s successor) college with 108 staff and turned it into a University with a rigorous commitment to excellence. In 2006 Princeton was rated the top university in the United States, with Harvard second, by US News and Report (the most respected of the US rankings) and seventh in the Shanghai Jiao Tong University world league table. It achieved this without having a medical school and with a student population of slightly less than 7000, of whom 2000 were graduate students. By then it had a tenured or tenure track faculty of about 800, a staff : student ratio of 1 : 8 and an endowment of $11bn, the fourth largest in the US. James Axtell, a historian who holds a named chair at William and Mary College, tells how this came about. Like most institutional histories some compromises have had to be made and the higher education scholar will regret the absence of tabular analyses of student data and of institutional financial performance, particularly in relation to the University’s extraordinary capacity to generate alumni and other external funding. Although the book is scholarly in citing a huge range of textual evidence it would have been helpful to the nonPrincetonian to have had Princeton’s rise to such eminence set in the wider context of US public as well as private higher education. To the British reader, Axtell’s very readable account, provokes some hard comparative questions. Wilson’s appointment to the Princeton presidency coincides, after all, with the granting of chartered university status to the first generation of British civic universities, yet they, © 2008 The Author. Journal compilation © 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford, OX4, 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA.

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alternately constrained and buffeted by British governments, do not remotely compare with Princeton’s academic standing a century later. Moreover Princeton’s position as a broadly based university, albeit without a medical school, to generate enormous financial support for research, has been achieved from a small student number base by comparison, for example, with Manchester now setting out its stall to be ‘world class’ with over 30,000 students or even with Oxford and Cambridge with about 17,000 each. To non-Americans, and indeed to many Americans looking at universities through the lens of public higher education, the key will be resources. Princeton’s wealth is such that every student has $1.6m of endowment standing behind him/her; Princeton’s alumni are among the most generous in the world and its fund raising machinery is probably the most professional anywhere. However, there are other wealthy universities in the US, such as the University of Southern California, which have not reached anything like Princeton’s intellectual and academic position. How therefore was Princeton’s academic stature achieved and what lessons does it have for Britain? First and foremost from Wilson’s arrival in 1902 it declared its ambition to seek ‘intellectual distinction and intellectual primacy’ (Link 1966–94) and made that its primary objective. To achieve this it adopted rigorously selective policies both in the appointment of faculty and in the recruitment of students. (In practice, until the G.I. Bill, its selectivity at the student level was deeply flawed in the allocation of quotas for Jewish recruitment and an almost total exclusion of Afro-Americans; it only admitted women in 1969). As applicant numbers grew it became more and more selective rather than expanding its intake with a consequential impact on the intellectual quality of the student body: Princeton students take out on average 90 books a year from the Firestone Library; in 1996 Princeton’s 5000 undergraduate students checked out as many books as Michigan’s (itself a university in the Jao Tong top 20) 33,000. As Axtell makes clear, the Firestone Library with its 6 million volumes and huge array of special collections, almost all gifted, makes a central contribution to undergraduate education by keeping virtually its whole stock on open access to encourage intellectual inquiry. Every graduate student from ‘a reading department’ has a room in the Library and every senior student a carrel. (By 1980 the Library had 260 endowed book funds – how many British universities actively fund raise for their libraries?). In the 1920s the University adopted a new curriculum plan by cutting the number of courses in the last two ‘senior’ years from five to four, two of which constituted ‘the major’, together with ‘the senior thesis’, a 100,000 word © 2008 The Author. Journal compilation © 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

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dissertation, still regarded as the determining characteristic of their education by Princeton alumni as demonstrated in The Rule of Four (Caldwell and Thompson 2004) an ingenious intellectual thriller written by two Princeton graduate students. The new syllabus, today almost unchanged, represented a successful attempt to focus a highly selective intake on an intellectually challenging syllabus. (In Britain we might compare Bruce Truscott’s condemnation of ‘Red Brick’ curricula as it was two decades later (Truscott 1951) and the attempt to rejuvinate UK degree programmes with the ‘New Maps of Learning’ in the 1960s). By the 1960s Princeton was operating a ‘needs blind’ admissions policy and in 1998 loans to students from poorer backgrounds were replaced by outright grants. In 2006 over 50% of students qualified for financial aid; 9% of the intake were the first of their families to attend college. Selectivity on the faculty side was equally rigorous. In 1937 President Dodds asked the Trustees to fund ‘more professorships of great distinction, sufficiently endowed to constitute coveted prizes in the academic world, which will enable the University to retain, in the face of calls elsewhere, and to attract from outside, world leaders in the fields of the professorships’ (Dodds 1937). By the late 1950s over 200 endowed chairs had been created. In 1930, under a separate endowment, the Institute of Advanced Studies was created, which in the modern era, not only houses a group of world leaders in their field but attracts 150 visiting scholars each year to the campus. Internal standards have been toughened over the years with the ‘six up or out’ rule introduced in the 1970s; half the tenured positions go to outsiders. All tenured staff are expected to teach in the undergraduate as well as the graduate programmes and a five point teaching evaluation form, introduced as early as the 1960s, and completed by all students, ensures a rigorous enhancement of teaching standards. Over the last two decades, when the unit of resource in British universities fell by 45% Princeton increased its permanent faculty numbers by 20% without raising its student numbers at all. A special feature of Princeton’s success has been its Graduate School introduced as early as 1910. (By comparison British universities only began to do so in the 1990s). Again selectivity is key, with an acceptance rate for graduate students of only 17% (as opposed to well over 90% in most British universities). But over 50% of those accepted are awarded full scholarships and only 16% earn their keep by teaching. Out of the success of its 250th year fund raising campaign the University itself funds nearly 600 University fellowships, 247 of which are named and endowed, and over 250 assistantships. (Another 330 assistantships are funded out of federal grants). © 2008 The Author. Journal compilation © 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

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In Britain, and indeed in most US universities, Princeton’s small size and the absence of a medical school, would have condemned it to second class status, at best. Princeton, however, has challenged these traditional assumptions by concentrating in the sciences/technologies mainly on theoretical work, where large teams are less necessary, and where more impact can be made by individuals, and by being ruthlessly selective on the quality of the individuals recruited at all levels. Moreover Princeton only has 33 academic departments (but countless research centres and institutes) giving it strength in depth whereas many British universities, until recent structural reforms, operated with over 50. From a British perspective it is possible to argue that none of this would have been possible without the University’s extraordinary success in a wealthy environment in persuading alumni to contribute huge sums to sustain an institution that would have been too small to achieve what it wanted to achieve on the back of tuition fees alone. But it is not that simple. First, only just over 60% of graduates actually contribute (although this is said to be the highest proportion in the US), and second, graduates contribute because they care about the University. Indeed their loyalty to what they see as the core academic values of the institution can sometimes be an embarrassment: in the 1960s the Concerned Alumni of Princeton (CAP) campaigned about changes introduced to the academic programme and even produced a monthly magazine which it sent to all interested alumni; in the late 1970s an Oregon alumnus launched a large scale inquiry into reductions in student teaching loads to which the President, Bowen, responded by arguing that with increased selectivity the current students needed a curriculum which gave more emphasis to creativity. I am not aware of any parallel concern about the curriculum amongst British alumni. British and US higher education systems have both been concerned throughout the last century with excellence and with access but in Britain it has perhaps been inevitable that the latter has been dominant. What is interesting about the Princeton story is the extent to which really tough academic decisions – about selectivity, about curriculum, about tenure and about head hunting – created a brand loyalty which alumni and others felt it important to defend, and how the resulting wealth was ploughed back into the core business of teaching and research. Princeton could have been yet another East coast high calibre private university but it chose to want to be ‘world class’ and it had the single mindedness to implement the objective (unlike the plethora of British universities which claim the phrase for marketing purposes), and it has been consistent in seeking to do so over a very long period through a succession of heavy© 2008 The Author. Journal compilation © 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

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weight long serving presidents, Hibben (1912–1932), Dodds (1933– 1957) and Bowen (1972–1988) whose approaches to the task Axtell describes as ‘the logical outcomes’ of the Wilson presidency (Axtell 2006). It was also driven by competition with like minded institutions: Harvard, Yale, MIT and Chicago. In Britain, only Oxford and Cambridge, with very much smaller endowments stand as comparators, both in the world league tables, where Cambridge is higher and Oxford just behind, and in their selective approach to the recruitment of students and staff. Successful higher education systems need institutional eminence at the top of these tables and broad access at the bottom. The Princeton story demonstrates that the Imperials, the UCLs, the Bristols and the Warwicks need to show a similar ruthless consistency of objective if they are to compete at this level. Axtell’s book should be required reading for those who believe that size is not everything, that undergraduate education still counts, and that excellence is only achieved if it is addressed holistically in terms of student selection, student support, staff recruitment and development, good facilities and a sustainable financial base. There do not appear to be any short cuts to being truly ‘world class’. Michael Shattock References Axtell, J. (2006) The Making of Princeton University: from Woodrow Wilson to the Present. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, p. 73. Caldwell, I. and Thompson, D. (2004) The Rule of Four. New York: The Dial Press. Dodds, H. W. (1937) Report of President quoted in Axtell ibid, p. 79. Link, A. S. (1966–94) The Papers of Woodrow Wilson. Princeton University Press (69 Vols) quoted in Axtell ibid, p. 29. Truscott, B. (1951) Red Brick University. Pelican Books Part II, Chapter 2.


Higher Education Quarterly, Vol. 62, Nos. 12 (2008)

Higher Education

Higher Education