UNIVERSITY GOVERNANCE: FROM REFLECTION TO ACTION

Abstract

INTRODUCTION. This article examines the specificieties of university government, and considers what this government should guarantee to the institutions that configure the university, as well as its relationship to the governance of society, focusing on the European case. METHOD. In the first place, we define the concepts of university’s government, mainly the way in which interest has been moving from this concept toward that of governance, as well as that of autonomy and the implications that the requirements of accountability have meant for both concepts. RESULTS. We find that the current context in which universities develop has meant the modification of traditional structures, which has generated diverse types of institutional answers as regards university government (sometimes successful and other times less so), besides making clear the impossibility of a universal model. DISCUSSION. We present a model of university government that, in the European case, seeks to overcome the conflict between tradition and innovation, one which does not necessarily entail the loss of the university’s specificities.