(Re)Discovering University Autonomy: The Global Market Paradox of Stakeholder and Educational Values in Higher Education

This book challenges traditional approach to university autonomy which is based on four pillars: organisational, financial, human resource, and academic. The main thesis is that a fuller understanding of university autonomy can only be obtained through a more holistic view of the complex inter-relationships between stakeholders and policies which can reinforce and equally pull in opposite directions. The holistic view is expressed in a model of institutional university autonomy that brings together the traditional basic four pillars of autonomy, and five interfaces: government–university; university–university staff; academic staff–students; university–business; and university–internationalisation. This model is explored through international case studies that give new insights and reinforce our understanding that the issues relating to institutional university autonomy are complex, interactive and genuinely global. Pointers for future research are identified to encourage a dynamic scholarly and policy dialogue about the range and complexity of contemporary higher education and how internal and external ‘interfaces’ may support, modify, undermine, and/or limit institutional university autonomy.