0000000000469848
AUTHOR
Romulo Pinheiro
Universities' mundaneness and regional engagement : Setting the stage
This chapter introduces the main logic of this volume, which starts from the grassroots level of universities’ “everyday” engagements, looking at the manifold ways in which university knowledge agents build connections with multiple regional partners across the public and private sectors, and civic society more generally. Roles, functions and normative orientations of universities in the context of their surrounding regions have, in many cases, been taken for granted and, thus, have not been systematically addressed and/or still lack theorizing, due to the focus being on extraordinary, large-scale and eye-catching activities, and financially impressive transactions such as patents and spin-…
The Scandinavian Model in Healthcare and Higher Education: Recentralising, Decentralising or Both?
Nivå1
Hybridity in Nordic Higher Education
This article builds on the concept of nested hybridity. It emphasizes professional practices and organizational design in studying hybridity of steering and management of professional public service organization. The article compares public sector dynamics in higher education in Finland, Norway, and Sweden. The data consists of surveys and interviews on performance management in Nordic universities. Previous studies on hybridity of professional work and public organizations define hybridity as a multidimensional concept that occurs at different levels of social practices. While the multifaceted nature of hybridity is clear, demarcating between levels of hybridity and theoretical approaches …
To Be or Not to Be Responsible? Academic Research and Social Responsibility
Publicly funded universities have been under increasing pressure to provide evidence regarding the economic value of their core activities, not least when it comes to the social benefits accrued from the research mission. This study offers a glimpse of Nordic perspectives on the social impact of research from the positions of policymakers, university leadership, and academics. From a macro perspective, the paper investigates to what extent Norwegian policy actors rely on the excellence/relevance discourse in their plans for the future development of higher education. At the meso level, the study explores how academic leaders make sense of internal and external pressures (drivers and strateg…
Universities and regions: New insights and emerging developments
In this concluding chapter, the editors take stock of the empirical findings across the cases and levels of analysis and link the empirical evidence to the analytical framework presented in Chapter 2. In so doing, we revisit the interplay between macro, meso, and micro dimensions of the environments as well as the temporality in which higher education institutions (HEIs) operate, which, taken together, help shape the mundane (everyday) or routine behaviours of actors within HEIs. The editors conclude by suggesting that the empirical evidence and conceptual insights advanced in this volume represent a needed first step, yet more needs to be done (future studies) to further unpack how the dyn…
Taking women on boards: a comparative analysis of public policies in higher education
Paid Open Access
Aligning University Roles and Strategic Orientations: When Local Mandates and Global Aspirations Meet
Recent policy developments in Norwegian higher education, aiming to nurture world-class environments, have focused on the need to strengthen teaching quality and research excellence. However, higher education institutions (HEIs) are increasingly under pressure to make local contributions (“impacts”), for example, in the form of job creation, technology transfers, local economic developments, and so on, which result in tensions and dilemmas at multiple levels, not least as regards strategic management. This chapter investigates how universities align education and research on the one hand and how they navigate the tensions between local demands and global aspirations on the other. Firstly, w…
Den tredje rollen : Fra distriktshøgskole til universitet
This chapter discusses the evolution of third-mission collaboration by tracking the historical unfolding of third-mission engagement in the Norwegian higher education sector and against the backdrop of changes in the institutional profiles and legal statuses of domestic providers. We categorise developments into four distinct phases and develop a novel typology on the evolution of third-mission roles and the tensions that emerge from this, to be empirically tested and applied in other geographical contexts. The research problem being addressed is: What characterises third-mission engagement in the transition from regional college to a full-fledged university? The findings are of relevance t…
Responses to the Global Financial Crisis - Lessons From the Public Sector in the Nordic Countries
Nivå1
Unpacking Mundaneness : A novel conceptual framework for universities and regional engagement
In this chapter, we debate the current view on university-regional engagements and suggest a renewed theoretical framework based on four main elements – macro, meso, micro dimensions, as well as a meta-dimension of temporality that cuts across all levels. The macro environment is typically defined as pertaining to public policies, culture, laws, and economy, while the meso environment includes links between the macro (societal) forces and the micro (agents) level through intermediate institutions and structures and is characterized by the processes and mechanisms of interaction of different actors. The micro level is about agency – organizations or individuals/groups within organizations – …