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RESEARCH PRODUCT

‘World Class Local Heroes’: Emerging Competitive Horizons and Transnational Academic Capitalism in Finnish Higher Education – 2010–2012

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This chapter introduces an analysis based on institutional profiles of higher education institutions and the two institutional case studies that were carried out in Finland as part of the CINHEKS study. The purposeful selection of the profiles and case studies was based on historical contextualization, the spectrum of higher education institutions in Finland, as well as the twin effects of a major legislative reform, carried out as the global economic crisis of 2008/09 unfolded. In terms of theory of the middle range, empirical focus was achieved via a purposeful selection based on mission emphasis, disciplinary cultures, career stage and competitive horizons. This analysis spotlights three key facets of the Finnish case particularly relevant to the CINHEKS comparative study. Specifically, the Finnish higher education systems’ incorporation into neoliberal transnational academic capitalism, characterized by tensions between established tradition, at a national competitive horizon and emergent competitive horizons linked to the global division of scholarly labor. Secondly, the way in which this division of labor manifests is illustrated by a contrast on two extreme cases within Finnish higher education, featuring regional (and HEI) survival in one case, and a pragmatic foray into the global-facing world of HEIs vying for globally significant profiles, reputation and outcomes. Thirdly, we focus on the resulting misrecognition of enduring features that characterize the Finnish system, as a whole, across the extremes in our case studies, as well as paradoxical change and flux that presently characterizes this system. From the outside-looking-in, Finland’s society and education system are internationally – and often uncritically – valorized, on a regular basis. However, from the inside-looking-around, many higher education actors are of the opinion that higher education is not changing quickly enough, while others remain firmly convinced higher education is changing far too quickly. Our discussion centers on the uncertainty as to the viability of the signature features that are often cited as the basis for the quality of life in one of the last remaining strong Nordic social democracies and the role higher education system has to play. In addition, building directly on the cross-case analysis of CINHEKS higher education profiles, this analysis introduces the conceptual problematization universtasis which integrates power, domain and mission in a way that allows both empirically grounded explanation-building and policy analysis concerning the relationships between social reproduction and transformation in higher education within and between networked knowledge societies.