Institutional Differentiation in the European University System. New Evidence from the AQUAMETH Project

The paper is based on the recent construction of a large dataset on European universities in six countries (UK, Spain, Italy, Portugal, Norway, Switzerland), covering 271 institutions. The European university system is largely based on public, government-funded, universally accessible institutions, formally of equal value. Variations around this fundamental characterization certainly exist, such as the admission system at Grand Ecoles in France, or the introduction of numerus clausus in some faculties (e.g. medical schools) in many countries. Also, in some countries differences are present between different types of higher education institutions: in so called dual systems (e.g. Netherlands) vocational training institutions are separated from universities, while in unitary systems such as United Kingdom large differences existed (and still exist) between universities and polytechnics. However, taking into account these national heterogeneities, it can be said that two elements strongly characterize the European model: the public role and the universality. It is important to note that, at least in the European institutional landscape, there is no intrinsic pressure towards specialization, rather the opposite is true. Having several missions tied together has been the usual way to comply with an expanding population of students under conditions of large national public funding, until the late ‘80s. Limited competition made it possible to maintain largely different (sometimes, conflicting) performance criteria within the same institutional borders, and to allocate resources in such a way that all groups could find the allocation acceptable. The reason is that limited competition (or abundant flows of resources) create large organizational slacks, permitting political consensus. Still, we find consistent evidence of a strong trend towards specialization of university profiles and hence of institutional differentiation of the system. We develop the rationale for specialisation and we build up a series of new indicators. Under increasing competition, universities cannot rely on steady flows of unconditional resources, but must periodically persuade stakeholders and make credible claims over their offering. If they claim about students’ job placement, they must consistently allocate resources to counselling services and job placement offices. If they claim they can deliver useful research to industry, they must develop interface roles and procedures. Up to a certain point, stakeholders may be happy with generic performances, but as they become more and more experienced, they will require dedicated efforts. The notion of dedicated resources is crucial here. To the extent to which resources can be kept generic, the conflict can be mitigated, perhaps with internal rules over time allocation. To the extent that a secretary may work for student practices, PhD grants, industry contracts, or organising international conferences, the conflict over the use of his/her time budget can be managed at lower levels in the organization. But when resources come to be dedicated, internal flexibility may be lost. Are we going to hire a job placement manager or a technology transfer manager? In addition, resource allocations create internal tensions also for existing people, because they may have conflicting requirements. Investing heavily into undergraduate education may create constraints on professors’ time budget. Pushing researchers to deliver industrially transferable research or patents may draw on resources for publishable research. The question whether there are substitution rather than complementarity relations between inputs and between outputs is an empirical one, has been analyzed repeatedly in the literature. But, whatever the empirical situation, there are logical implications we can derive. The stronger the trade-off between outputs, the larger the conflict generated by allocation of resources over dedicated inputs. As ...